


Adoro te devote

by linguamortua



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Bees, Belts, Biblical References, Blasphemy, Catholic School, Catholic Seminary, Dry Humping, Dubious Morality, Finn Does Yoga, First Time, I Am Probably Going To Hell, M/M, Oral Sex, Pretending to be straight, Religious Guilt, Rey Is A Cinnamon Roll, Self-Harm, Shame, Smoking, mortification of the flesh, repressed sexuality
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-17
Updated: 2016-05-11
Packaged: 2018-06-02 19:58:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 9
Words: 22,663
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6580279
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/linguamortua/pseuds/linguamortua
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kylo is twenty years old, a second-year seminary student passionately devoted to the idea of a life in the priesthood. Beneath his bookish exterior, he has an alarming fixation on the concepts of self-discipline and martyrdom. In another time, he might have a been a monk in some warrior order, or a Jesuit priest travelling the world.</p><p>When he’s rewarded for his hard work with the responsibility of teaching a class at a Catholic prep school, he meets Hux, a tearaway rich kid who will challenge Kylo’s faith and shatter his self-control. Kylo knows that a torrid sexual affair with a seventeen year old will end his chances of becoming a priest, and yet for one intense, humid summer, it’s all he can think about.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Adoro te devote](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6718726) by [quicksilverys](https://archiveofourown.org/users/quicksilverys/pseuds/quicksilverys)



> I'd like to thank [irisparry](http://irisparry.tumblr.com) for presenting me with the dire news that Adam Driver is starring in an upcoming film about Jesuit priests, and [reserve](http://reserve.tumblr.com) for providing (im)moral support.
> 
> Chapter one beta provided by [Trill](http://trillgutterbug.tumblr.com).

> _All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work._

2 Timothy 3:16-17

Pages whispered under Kylo’s left hand as he flipped through the Psalms. The rustle of the slick, onion-skin paper was the only sound in the room. It was a quiet summer afternoon. When the bells weren’t ringing, it was always quiet at the seminary. The little square window to Kylo’s room was cracked open and a bee bumbled around it, buzzing and batting against the glass. He spared the creature a glance. It was caught half-under the edge of the window, flying back and forth in confusion. Kylo stretched out a hand and pushed the window open so the bee could escape. It didn’t understand that it was free, and spun in agitated circles.

‘Chrystostom reckoned that the bee is more honored than other animals,’ Kylo said softly, guiding the bee away from the window with a careful hand. ‘Probably not more intelligent, though.’ The bee spiralled away, off to trap itself in another window.

Kylo’s fingers returned to the navy blue Douay-Rheims at his side, and he picked up his pen again. He was composing a response to his tutor on Psalm 22:16. _For dogs have surrounded Me; The congregation of the wicked has enclosed Me. They have pierced My hands and My feet._ The Psalm made him shiver. A lot of verses made Kylo shiver. This particular one had a brutal, visceral quality to it that elicited a physical reaction like fingernails on his scalp or lips on his neck. It exuded an exciting aura of martyrdom. It captivated him. He stroked his fingertips absently down the edge of the Bible as he considered, and wrote another line of notes. His father confessor and tutor was absolutely rigorous on interpretation of scripture. Most of Kylo’s study time was spent carefully constructing sound theological arguments, about half of which Father Snoke abruptly shredded.

A smile crept across Kylo’s face as he added the finishing touches to his response. Snoke was strict, but he approved of Kylo’s dedication and rewarded it. _You’re not supposed to care about being rewarded_ , Kylo told himself, and yet he sat at his desk and quietly glowed. Tomorrow he would begin his own mentorship with a class of students at the Catholic school attached to the seminary. Boys of sixteen or seventeen, newly learning about their faith and in need of guidance. That Kylo, still a second-year seminarian, would be allowed to teach them, was testament to his hard work. So Kylo let himself indulge in the sin of pride, just for a moment. Then he closed his books, shelved them neatly and stood just in time for the chapel bell to ring out Vespers.

Nobody at St. Luke’s Seminary was required to pray eight times a day, of course - administration was firm on the point that they were students, and not monks. Still, the major and minor hours rung out across the tiny campus at regular points throughout the day, and students casually spoke about meeting each other at None, or getting up at Prime. Snoke had ordered Kylo to come to his office today at Vespers to finalise the details of his new role.

‘Come in, Kylo,’ Snoke said as Kylo lifted his hand to knock on the old oak door. Snoke always seemed to know exactly when he was standing outside. Kylo pushed the door open and padded across the worn carpet to Snoke’s imposing desk.

‘Good evening, Father,’ he said, and Snoke gave him a dry, cracked smile. Although he was an excellent pedagogue and a respected father confessor, Snoke was not considered likeable by the students at large. Kylo liked him, though, and the old man always seemed to have a smile in return.

‘Sit down and take a look at this,’ said Snoke, handing a plain brown folder across the desk. Kylo opened it in his lap. Twelve forms were arranged in alphabetical order.

‘These are my students?’ Kylo asked, his throat tight with excitement. He read each name to himself. Barry, Brown, Hux, Kelly, King, Leavitt, Mitaka, Nolan, O’Shea, Walker, Yao, Young. He felt immediately possessive of them. Their single-page information sheets gave tantalising hints about each boy. Grades, extra-curricular activities, a few sparse details about awards or special arrangements. The sort of thing a teacher - a real teacher - would need to know. Mitaka, here on a year-long language exchange from Japan. Walker, a scholarship boy with straight As. Kelly, Irish-American and an athlete. A palpable sense of potential radiated off the thin folder.

‘You’ll see them for an hour a week for a Bible study class,’ said Snoke, gesturing to the sticky note on the inner cover of the folder. _Wednesday, 11am, Ferris Building, room 2_ , written in an administrator's feminine handwriting. ‘How you choose to use that time is up to you, although it should be some form of guided discussion.’

‘I’ve been studying the curriculum material,’ said Kylo, eager to show willing. ‘I made some lesson plans.’ He chewed on his lip for a moment. ‘Maybe I could show you?’

‘Kylo, you’re very diligent. You’ll be walking them through analysis that you could do in your sleep. I have faith in whatever you’ve planned.’

‘What if they don’t listen?’ Kylo asked, flushing a little. It seemed like such a childish worry.

‘Youngsters imitate what they see around them,’ said Snoke. ‘Nobody expects you to have all the answers to theological debates, or to be a perfect teacher. Your role is to interpret your faith in a way that makes sense to these boys, and to speak and act appropriately. It’s hard for them to connect with old teachers. Your youth will be beneficial.’

Something about the way Snoke looked at him then made Kylo feel warm. He didn’t ask Snoke to clarify; he hurried on.

‘You spoke the other day about mentoring…’ he began.

‘Informally,’ said Snoke. ‘You won’t be required to meet all the boys outside of class time. We are connected to St. Luke’s School, though, so it would be appropriate and indeed useful for you to make time for any of the boys who need more personal discussions about Scripture. As long as it doesn’t interfere with your own studies, of course.’

‘I have a lot of work,’ Kylo agreed.

‘More than anyone else,’ said Snoke, but it didn’t sound like a compliment. He paused, and moved a few sheets of paper minutely to the left. ‘There is a kind of dangerous pride in being the first to rise in the morning, the most diligent student, the most often seen in prayer. I think making time in your schedule to be a mentor and a guide will be good for you.’

Kylo nodded, unable to speak. A tiny seed of shame was stuck somewhere between his lungs and his mouth. His appointment as a student teacher had seemed like a reward, but now he thought it was a correction. Not a penance, exactly, but a way to keep him in check. He picked at a loose thread on his pants and stacked his feet one atop the other, letting time crawl on without a word. After a minute of silence, Snoke checked his watch and then tactfully gestured to the door.

‘It’s almost half past six,’ Snoke said. ‘You must be hungry. Go and eat, and come and see me tomorrow after your first class.’

Kylo stood. At the door he paused, and half-turned back, wanting to say something. He didn’t know what, though; he never knew what to say. Snoke was his spiritual teacher and his confessor, but he could no more _confide_ in the man emotionally than he could call into a radio show with his problems.

He could confess, but that was different. Sin was easy to navigate. Kylo sinned constantly. Something was either a sin, or it wasn’t; emotions were infinitely more complex.

‘You look like a man wrestling with something,’ said Poe Dameron cheerfully, falling into step beside Kylo as he crossed the quadrangle to the dining hall. Poe was always cheerful, and never wrestled with anything. Casually tousled and stylish in jeans and a polo shirt, Poe grinned up at Kylo and easily inserted himself into Kylo’s personal space, as he did with everyone he liked.

‘I’m thinking about a class I have to teach tomorrow,’ Kylo said evasively.

‘Right! Right, you’re teaching the youth. That’s great, man. That’s great. You’ll be great.’

‘I thought you might have been picked,’ Kylo said. Poe got along with everybody and had a hazy notion that he might work with teenagers once he graduated. He was suffused with an easy charisma that Kylo tried, and failed, not to envy.

‘Too irreverent,’ said Poe. ‘Probably. St. Luke’s is nearly two hundred years old. They don’t approve of jeans and slang and guitars.’ Kylo blushed for the second time today as Poe gave him an appraising look. ‘You’ve got a more classic style, buddy.’

‘Classic,’ mumbled Kylo, watching his big feet ruck up the tidy gravel. He wore the same black shoes every day, and his plain, dark dress pants, and a black shirt. It was hard to find shoes and pants in his size. ‘It’s not an affectation,’ he said with sudden heat, in case that was what Poe was thinking.

‘Jesuit chic, my guy,’ Poe laughed, and gently bumped Kylo’s arm with his shoulder. Kylo forced himself not to take a step away. Poe was a good man. He just made Kylo feel awkward. Too earnest, too weird, too anachronistically concerned with theology and quotations and dusty, ancient books. They reached the dining hall and Kylo paused at the threshold of the old building. Poe shot him a questioning look. The late evening sun highlighted his face; high cheekbones, straight, dark eyebrows and a warm, inviting curl to his mouth. Kylo averted his eyes.

‘I’m, er, I’m not hungry,’ he said. ‘I think I’ll skip dinner.’

‘Whatever you like, man,’ said Poe, flashing him a movie star smile.

Kylo meandered to the chapel and found a quiet corner in which he could fold himself down onto his knees and pray. He eschewed the hassocks and instead let the bare floorboards creak under his kneecaps. It was dead silent here during dinner time. Dust motes swirled in the bright flashes of stained glass against the floor. Everything smelled like dust and stone and beeswax. Kylo reached out and slid a finger against one of the waxed floorboards.

He closed his eyes. Time grew long and liquid. He rolled the wooden beads of his rosary through his fingertips, one mystery at a time, shaping each accompanying prayer with precision and deliberate slowness. The beads grew warm and smooth in his hand. When he finished, the sun’s warmth was beginning to leech from the air and Kylo’s stomach growled. When he stood he felt stiff and sore, but easier in his mind. The dinner hour was long over.

It was easy to take the quiet back way to the dormitory house. He passed by one of the older teachers and they exchanged nods, but everyone else was at their evening recreation or prayer by now. Kylo’s room was at the very top of the building, a small bedroom conversion in what had probably been the servants’ quarters when the house was in personal use. He had an odd little bathroom next door with a slanted roof. Lower down, the rooms had been modernised, but Kylo’s scholarship was limited and, lacking family to support him, he was confined to the attic.

It suited him. His bed was narrow and the floor were wooden and the only other rooms on his floor were used for storage. The bells rang out for Compline and Kylo slowly undressed himself in the dark. His rosary beads clicked in his hand as he lulled himself to sleep and then, eventually, they slid to the floor. It was very quiet.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter helpfully betaed by arch-cutie [Brawlite.](http://brawlite.tumblr.com)

> _Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves._

Philippians 2:3 

 _Humility_ , Kylo told himself sternly as he rose with the sun. He repeated it to himself like a mantra as he showered, scrubbing under the miserable water pressure. He reminded himself again as he rubbed his hair dry with a towel and dressed, carefully lining up the seams of his socks across his toes. Each tiny button on his shirt was like a rosary bead; Kylo did them up looking in the mirror and silently lecturing himself.  _Teaching is a service_ , he said in the privacy of his own head, echoing one of his tutors’ lectures weeks before. Snoke had already cautioned him against pride. Today he would behave impeccably.

To breakfast he went, down the stairs, around the back of the gardener’s sheds and into the dining hall. Three eggs, a slice of toast and a bowl of oatmeal, as always. He mumbled a short grace over his food and ate it one item at a time. Hardly anyone else was in the dining hall. Kylo was relieved; his mealtime rituals drew stares or comments, sometimes. Poe bounced in just as Kylo was taking his plates to the trolley in the corner, but Kylo managed to slip away before he was noticed. He was too nervous for conversation today, his thoughts all scattered.

He wondered, as he tried to comb his hair into order, if he should grow a beard. He scrutinised himself in the mirror with a critical eye.  _Your youth will be beneficial_ , Snoke had told him yesterday, but Kylo resented it, longing for the outward trappings of wisdom. Instead - he stared at himself in the glass. At his mouth, trapped in a constant pout. The unavoidable uncertainty around his brow and eyes. He knew that he walked with an apologetic slouch, that he fiddled and touched his clothing and hair too much. Perhaps a beard would convey gravitas. He shrugged at himself and settled at his desk for some final preparation.

* * *

St. Luke’s Catholic School for Boys was just as venerable and old as its brother seminary across the road, but it was slicker, somehow, more modern and arranged as an advertisement to prospective students. Although the main building was ancient and picturesque, once Kylo reached the top of the driveway he could see newer buildings tucked away behind it. Two moderate-sized classroom blocks in a red-brick imitation of the main building, a dormitory block and playing fields lower down the hill on which the school stood. He recalled that the school housed about one hundred and fifty students, most from wealthy families.

It all made Kylo faintly uncomfortable. His own studies at the seminary were largely self-directed and rooted in a loose community of adult men of faith. If the grounds were a little shabby and the tutorial rooms old and boxy, the institution made up for those shortcomings with a pervasive sense of warmth and quiet erudition. St. Luke’s School practically funded the seminary, it was true, but Kylo suspected that many of the boys sent there had little interest in joining the clergy as once would have been the case. Still, it was a beautiful day, and Kylo had his well-thumbed Bible under his arm and a notebook full of class discussion points. It was hard not to be just a touch optimistic under the circumstances.

Unbidden, an image drifted into his mind of one of the larger tutorial rooms at the seminary, the scatter of chairs replaced by two neat rows of desks and two equally neat rows of students. An imaginary version of Kylo sat at the front of the room with his books open on the desk in front of him. The smell of cut grass inveigled its way into Kylo’s fantasy; perhaps the singing of birds outside. Yes. A boy read a passage from - from Proverbs, that would be appropriate.

‘What do we learn from these verses?’ Kylo asked in his daydream, the boys’ heads ducking down to consult their Bibles. A hesitant hand here; a tentative response. Kylo envisioned his own gentle, encouraging replies. How he would take their fledging analysis and expand on it. Maybe he would set them a little homework, just enough to get them engaged with the text but not so much to be off-putting. ‘Go away and think of some more examples of working to your strengths,’ Kylo told his hypothetical students.

Kylo was jerked out of his reverie by the gravel driveway turning to asphalt. He looked at his watch. It was ten to eleven. The Ferris building was on his right, a two-storey construction that was surely no more than a hundred years old. It was neatly signed with a metal plaque by the door. Kylo hesitated for a moment by the entrance, hovering, and checked the room number. It wasn’t hard to find, and the room wasn’t empty. A young woman with an unruly bun at the nape of her neck sat at the desk, writing a note.

‘Excuse me?’ he asked, and she jumped and then laughed. She had a wide smile and a round, fresh face. She wore no makeup, and her blouse was a bouquet of cream-coloured pleats. The overall effect was faintly Victorian, in a wholesome way.

‘Hi!’ The young woman stood and shook his clammy hand in her own cool, dry one. ‘Are you the Scripture study tutor? I was leaving a note for you.’

‘I’m the tutor - I’m Kylo.’

‘I’m glad you made it. I work in the school office, I’m Rey. I wanted to make sure you got here and had everything you need, but I’ve got a meeting so I have to run.’ She paused. ‘Er, _did_ you need anything?’

‘No,’ Kylo said, holding up his Bible and notepad. ‘This is really all I--’

‘Okay, great,’ said Rey, flashing him another smile. ‘I’ve got to go, sorry, bye!’ She dashed from the room in a flurry of floral perfume and cream silk and wisps of loose hair. Kylo hovered in the middle of the room for a moment, and then sat at the desk.

He waited.

A bell rang, somewhere, and there was a swell of young male voices. Doors opened and closed. There was shuffling in the hallway, and eventually the door was cracked open and a blond head poked in.

‘Come in,’ Kylo said, and after a whispered consultation behind the door, the class filed into the room. Kylo forced himself to sit calmly, shoulders down and hands on the desk by his open notebook. As if he’d done this dozens - maybe hundreds - of times.

There was no strict uniform at the school, no crested blazers or identical pressed pants. St. Luke’s made much of its claim that boys learned self-discipline under the school’s care. Rather than impose a uniform, the students were required to adhere to a dress code. Suits, shirts and proper shoes every day. Blazers, it seemed, were not required to match pants. So, while the boys looked similarly smart, the only item of clothing they shared was the navy blue school tie, plain except for a little gold crest halfway down.

The fashion seemed to be for narrow, modern pants in grey with darker blazers, although one boy wore a navy suit and another sported a sweater vest. Two boys had sneakers on in defiance of the rules. One had his tie rolled up and stuffed in his pocket. Kylo wondered if he should insist that the boy wore it; nobody had instructed him in the specifics of the school rules. They all dawdled in, talking quietly to each other and casting glances at Kylo, who peeked surreptitiously over his book as they found their seats and bickered over a borrowed pen or an earlier quarrel.

Mitaka and Yao were easy to pick out, of course, and the hulking blond boy was probably the athlete, Kelly. A chubby, pink boy argued quietly with his neighbour, slender and dark-skinned and almost as tall as Kylo. A sharp-faced redhead eyed Kylo with a look of distaste; his neighbour scribbled at the edge of his book with a pencil. The boys settled, eventually, muttering to each other but sitting in their seats with their books out.

Kylo laid his book carefully on the desk and ran a hand through his hair. He arranged himself in his chair and then looked around the room.

‘Good morning, everyone,’ he said, trying to sound calm but authoritative. ‘My name’s Kylo Ren. I study at the seminary over the road, and I’m going to be tutoring you in Bible studies for this summer semester. You can call me Kylo.’ A touch of informality, he hoped, would help with building rapport. The boys stared at him, some with fascination and others with boredom. He hoped he was imagining the disdain on their faces.

‘Good morning,’ they said back, out of time and with varying degrees of enthusiasm.

Kylo’s palms were sweating and he tried to look like he was just resting his hands on his legs, instead of drying them off on his pants.

‘Right, so, just go around the room and tell me your names,’ Kylo said. The boys complied. Kylo promptly forget every single one. In a fluster, he opened his copy of the Bible and tried to remember which verses he’d prepared. ‘Er, Corinthians,’ he said. Nobody moved. ‘Turn to Corinthians and someone - on the end there, yes - read 10:13, please.’

‘No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it.’ The boy read it in a long rush.

‘Right, good.’ Kylo took a deep breath. He knew these verses well, and had chosen them for what he imagined was their applicability to teenage boys. ‘What do you think this means?’

It took an age, but eventually a hand went up, and then another, and they started to fumble their way through explanations. For a while, all Kylo had to do was listen and nod and indicate to the next boy to speak. The minutes ticked by and Kylo felt almost at ease. He made a suggestion here, a clarification there. They skipped ahead to verse 23. Kylo expounded on context.

‘Great,’ said Kylo supportively, as much to himself as to the boys. ‘Well done. So, instead of pursuing and succumbing to a temptation like lust, what are some other things we might do instead?’ He waited.

‘Have a cold shower,’ said Kelly, to a few scattered laughs.

‘Study,’ said a boy with an Irish accent - Barry, Kylo thought. The redhead hooked his elbow over the back of his seat to look at his fellow student.

‘Barry, you’re sexually aroused by getting straight As,’ he said in a lazy drawl. The laughter was louder, this time, and the redhead gave a cruel litle grin, pleased with himself. Kylo tried to look stern.

‘That’s really not appropriate,’ he said firmly.

‘But what if you _were_ sexually aroused by studying?’ one of the other boys said in an awkward rush. ‘Or cold showers?’

‘Yeah, you’d just be making it worse,’ said Yao.

‘Well,’ said Kylo, ‘there are lots of ways that you could distract yourself, and it’s for each of us to figure out the best way for himself.’ That was a good answer, he thought - a subtle deflection, like something that Snoke would say. He had rallied. He looked down his notes for the next point, floundering. And then, blessedly, the bell rang, and the boys started shuffling their papers together. ‘Just, er, think about the idea of temptation and maybe-’ Kylo began, but the boys were already making for the exit.

They departed without thanks or delay, an impatient little scrimmage forming by the door. It was lunchtime and they must have been antsy from being cooped up all morning. Kylo wanted to sag in his chair, but the fox-like boy was lagging behind the others and he spotted his chance.

‘Could you wait a minute, please?’ Kylo asked, stretching out a hand to catch the boy’s eye. The boy paused, with his books under his arm, and came over in an insouciant slouch.

‘Yeah?’ The boy’s eyes flickered over Kylo with sudden intensity, taking in his eyes and mouth and his attire as if seeing him for the first time. Sizing him up.

‘I wanted to - look, sorry, what was your name again?’

‘Hux,’ said the boy.

‘Your Christian name?’

‘Everyone just calls me Hux anyway. We do surnames here. _Kylo_.’ Hux’s mouth twitched with amusement.

‘Well, Hux, you know, we’re all here to learn and it’s not very kind to your fellow students to disrupt the class.’

‘When did I disrupt the class?’ Hux asked, with a thin veneer of innocence. His eyes were a light green, and he made them very wide.

‘There was a comment,’ Kylo started. He could already feel a blush creeping up his neck. ‘You suggested that Barry was, er-’

‘Aroused?’ Hux asked. He shifted, and the open neck of his shirt showed a pale flash of collarbone. His tie was hanging out of his jacket pocket. He looked deliberate in light disarray.

‘Yes, exactly, and I think you know that it was unhelpful to derail the conversation.’

‘Weren’t you asking us about sexual temptation?’ Hux smiled artfully, a pink little pout. His face made a remarkable transition from sly, fox-like sharpness to an altar boy’s innocence.

‘I wasn’t being specific as to the form of temptation,’ said Kylo sharply, his patience fraying. Abruptly he remembered that he had absolutely been specific, and that Hux knew it.

‘Oh,’ breathed Hux, his face making another alarming shift from innocence to soft-mouthed worry. ‘Are you going to cane me?’ Kylo stared at him with his mouth hanging stupidly open, trying to formulate a reply. He was very warm and very anxious, and he tugged at the neck of his shirt for a moment. ‘Jesus Christ,’ said Hux with a vicious bark of laughter, his voice dropping back down to what was apparently his normal register. ‘Wow. Insert perverted priest joke here. Nice, man. _Nice_. I’ll show myself out.’ And he left. It was only after the door closed behind the boy that Kylo realised he’d said nothing about the tie. Or the casual blasphemy.

Kylo had planned to go straight back to his room and make notes on the class, but he found himself too agitated. He turned left out of the school gate and made his way along the quiet road to a local park, instead. Nothing had gone as planned - nothing. From the strangely mismatched students, to their inability to focus. The clever cruelty that young Hux seemed to revel in, and the wavering uncertainty in Kylo’s voice as he’d tried to bring the boys to heel. Worst of all, Snoke expected to see him that afternoon and hear about his first experience of teaching.

By the time he reached the park he was breathing heavily from walking fast, and his face was sweaty and warm. He hoped he didn’t see anybody he knew there. A handful of small children ran and swung in the enclosed play area, and there were scattered couples and families sitting or lying on the grass. Kylo found a secluded spot in the shadow of two tall trees. He sat down, back to the larger of the two trees, and pulled his knees up protectively. It pressed his Bible to his chest; he found himself stroking the soft cover as if it was a stuffed animal.

 _The class was challenging_ , he imagined saying to Snoke. Or perhaps, _it wasn’t what I expected_. Snoke would demand clarification on both of those points, though. Maybe he could start with a rueful smile, a hint of self-deprecation. _It seems that I’m not a natural teacher_.

He hoped fervently that Snoke wouldn’t ask him about specific students. He couldn’t face talking about Hux; his sharp tongue and his pale eyes and his obvious knowledge of his own youthful beauty. Even the knowledge of him felt obscene. If he could just avoid talking about it with Snoke. If he could just ignore it for a while. _I committed the sin of lustful thoughts_ , Kylo would say in the confessional, admitting to the same sin he committed every week, and that would be it. It would be between him and God. God had sent him a personal trial, but that was normal. He would overcome it. He would.

Kylo buried his face in his knees and stayed that way for a while, hiding from the world.


	3. Chapter 3

> _Set a guard, O Lord, over my mouth; Keep watch over the door of my lips._

Psalm 141:3

Three days passed before Kylo felt able to look over his carefully-written lesson plans, and another two before he could make himself talk to Snoke about the class. The latter was not hard to avoid; Snoke had been called away for a few days and Kylo had only to immerse himself in his studies and await a summons when he returned.

Snoke had never been away for this long before, though, and Kylo had the distinct feeling of being a child out of the reassuring view of his parents. He assumed that was the feeling, anyway - it wasn’t as though he remembered his parents. His daily routines were unvarying and his studies were as diligent as ever but, every so often, he found himself thinking _I could just not read this passage. I could do whatever I wanted_. This weakness alarmed him. Was he truly so lacking in self-discipline that the absence of his father-confessor tempted him to laziness?

Until now, Kylo had been certain in many aspects of his seminary life. One shouldn’t speak of being _good_ at faith, but Kylo was good at it. To fail at a task of academic theology was a novel feeling for him. To be blindsided by lustful feelings was similarly unnerving. He wanted to confess and unburden himself. Confess to the lust, the laziness, the doubt - all of it. He also wanted to never speak of it to anyone. When Snoke leaned down to speak to Kylo in the dining hall, inviting him to a private discussion that evening, Kylo felt a bewildering, paradoxical rush of relief and anxiety.

‘I’m sorry to have left you in the lurch,’ Snoke said in his dusty voice as they took their seats in his study. He didn’t offer any details about where he’d been. Kylo supposed it was none of his business. He sat quietly in the too-small chair and waited. ‘You had your class on… Wednesday?’

‘Last Wednesday,’ Kylo confirmed.

‘And how did it go?’

Kylo took a deep breath that he hoped wasn’t too obvious and said, in as unrehearsed fashion as he could, ‘Well, it was, er, a challenge.’

‘Of course it was,’ agreed Snoke. ‘But what would be the point of trying something that didn’t challenge you? There’s no shame in not being good at things, Kylo.’ The last line stung. In the moment, Kylo couldn’t parse out why it didn’t feel reassuring.

‘I prepared very thoroughly,’ he said, knowing that it was true.

‘Classroom dynamics can’t be prepared for. What did you teach?’

‘Corinthians, on temptation.’

‘Ah, yes, particularly good verses for teenage boys.’ Snoke smiled. ‘I’ve tactically deployed those verses many a time myself.’

‘I hadn’t taken into account how outspoken the students would be on the subject,’ Kylo said, very carefully.

‘Misbehaving? I can have a word with the school administrator.’

‘No, no,’ said Kylo hastily. The thought of Snoke fixing his problems for him was unendurable. ‘Just, er, rowdy. I can work it out. They were all right.’ He silently cursed himself, for now would have been the perfect time to discuss dress codes, conduct, Hux. But if he brought it up, Snoke would know that Kylo couldn’t do the work himself. That would be unacceptable.

‘You’re aware that if any of the boys need a peer mentor, you can see them outside of class time?’

‘I forgot to tell them that,’ Kylo said, flushing in an intense moment of chagrin. He closed his eyes for a minute. He’d written a reminder to himself in his notebook, but the class had thrown him off. Another failure.

‘You can tell them this week. And tell _me_ , Kylo, what did you learn?’

‘I learned I’m an awful teacher,’ Kylo said, his eyes still closed. Snoke made a sound of irritation at the hyperbole, and Kylo opened his eyes and tried to sit up straighter in his chair. There was no call to be disrespectful in turn. ‘I’m sorry. I learned that… I learned that I’m concerned about the students liking me. Which isn’t the point of the class. And that I lose my place in my notes easily. And that I’m happier lecturing than discussing.’

‘That’s very important,’ Snoke said, leaning forward across the desk. ‘This week you’ll do better.’ It sounded like an order. Snoke delivered the pronouncement with hypnotic intensity. Hux burned behind Kylo’s teeth and for an awful moment he wanted to blurt everything out, _I can’t do better, I can’t do it, there’s a boy who--_. It took an effort of will to keep his mouth shut, and hold out, hold out through the last few minutes of small talk until Snoke dismissed him.

Deflated and still doubting, Kylo immersed himself in the next day’s class preparation. He decided to try to play to his strengths and spend some of the hour delivering a lecture. Lectures, he thought, were probably similar enough to sermons that he could make a good effort. Psalm 141.3 was his choice. It seemed appropriate. Caution, tact and keeping his mouth shut. The afternoon wore on. Bedtime loomed; Kylo dreaded the next morning. He did not sleep well.

* * *

‘Your tie, Hux,’ said Kylo after the class was over, injecting calm authority into his voice in an imitation of Snoke. He had done better today, and he was riding on a wave of confidence. The boys had listened to his instruction with barely any fidgeting or whispering, and there had been a slow but respectful discussion afterwards. Hux had sprawled in his seat in the front row, legs a little too far apart and spurning the conversation going on around him. Kylo had tried to ignore him, but when he dawdled up from his desk and let the other boys beat him to the door, Kylo impulsively decided to act.

‘My tie?’

‘Put it on, please.’

Hux paused at the door when Kylo addressed him and turned, very slowly. He let his books drop to the windowsill and pulled his crushed tie from his pocket. He dangled it off his finger for a moment, raised his eyebrows. _What, this tie right here?_ With a languorous shrug, he let his blazer slide down his arms and then flicked it onto a nearby chair. A little tilt of his head exposed his neck, and Hux hung the tie around his collar and twisted it into an easy half Windsor, fingers slim and dextrous. The tie whispered against his crisp shirt. Hux let his eyes fall closed as he slid the knot up, up to his white throat.

He put his blazer back on, snapping it at the lapels to settle it. Kylo was about to tell him that the show had been unnecessary, but he froze when Hux stalked two or three steps across the floor.

‘Well?’ Hux said, tipping his head this way and that and looking at Kylo through his eyelashes. ‘Do I look like a good boy?’

‘You really should follow the dress code,’ Kylo said, in lieu of an answer. He busily stacked his books and checked his watch as if his next engagement was imminent.

‘Was that all?’ Hux asked, looking at Kylo down his nose. There was an aura of challenge about him that Kylo elected to ignore.

‘That’s all, Hux,’ Kylo said, as if he were a real teacher, with real authority. Hux disappeared, slouching away like a big cat on the prowl. Kylo rubbed a hand over his face. The boy was wretchedly confident and he seemed to have scented blood. He had met Hux only twice, and yet some alchemy of their personalities had flung them into a strange antagonism that Kylo could only endure. He dragged himself to his feet and slumped his way to the door. One foot caught a little on the carpet. He was all ungainly, he thought, awkward and slow and unworthy. The encounter with Hux had made him run hot. A jittery hyper awareness suffused him, so uncomfortable and uncharacteristic that he wanted to peel off his skin.

‘Hey!’ said the girl, Rey, as he opened the classroom door to find her there, hand raised to the door handle. Kylo flinched, surprised. A small sound almost escaped him. ‘How was class?’ She had braids in her hair today, twisted into twin coils perched high up on her head. Her blouse was dotted with tiny blue flowers.

‘It was, er, yeah,’ said Kylo, hugging his Douay-Rheims and notebook to his chest like a shield. She was standing a little too close, gazing up at him with a bright smile.

‘There’s a bunch of us who do lunch together,’ Rey said cheerfully, as if they knew each other. ‘In our twenties. I thought you might want to join us. They were doing something drastic to beef when I walked past the kitchens earlier, but there’s cheesecake for afters.’

Cheesecake; the thought made Kylo’s mouth water. He was hungry. He thought about the rich, creamy sweetness. Tart berries or a sugary caramel. He swallowed and looked away from Rey, down at the floor.

‘I can’t,’ he said, his shirt too warm and his thoughts full of Hux and the idea of cheesecake, that he didn’t deserve, a luxury, a temptation. ‘Because, there’s a thing.’ He brushed past her with a mumbled apology, head down.

‘Maybe next week…?’ Rey called after him as he dashed through the door and out into the midday sun. _Gluttony and lust_ , he thought, ducking his head against the sun in his eyes.

What new hell would assault him next, Kylo wondered, hunching over and walking fast. He took a meandering path down towards the road, trying to stay away from common areas and instead navigating around the back of the school buildings. He brushed past a bed of lavender bushes, disturbing a busy coterie of bees. One trailed after him for a few paces, bumping stupidly against his shoulder, and then decided that he was not sweet enough to alight upon and flew away. Kylo walked down a narrow, secluded gravel path, shaded by trees, through an old door in a fence and along the back of the kitchens. Past the bins and down a chipped concrete step and then around the back of a bike shed...

... and there was Hux, leaning against the corrugated iron with his eyes closed, his tie knot slid down and his top shirt button undone. His schoolbooks lay in a careless pile at his feet, and he was smoking. Cigarette in his right hand, the pack loose in his left. It might have been his first drag. He was very still, holding his breath, and then he blew out smoke in a long, satisfied plume.

Kylo could turn on his heel and leave now - find a different way back down to the road and walk away. He held his breath, mimicking Hux, and considered. Then he dragged a foot along the crumbling asphalt, slowly and deliberately. Hux opened his eyes.

‘Are you following me?’ he asked, showing no signs of remorse at being caught breaking the rules.

‘No,’ said Kylo. ‘I was leaving.’ He took a few paces forward and reached for the pack in Hux’s hand. Hux evaded Kylo’s clumsy grab and rolled the cardboard box over his fingers in a deft little motion.

‘You want a smoke? You could ask.’

‘I don’t smoke,’ said Kylo stiffly. ‘And you shouldn’t, either.’

‘Shouldn’t I?’ Hux asked, wide-eyed, and took another drag. Kylo saw the briefest flash of his pink, pink tongue as he touched the cigarette to his mouth.

‘It’s a vice,’ Kylo explained, ‘and so it’s not just physically unhealthy, it’s spiritually unhealthy. Your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost, Hux, and--’

‘I’m sorry,’ interrupted Hux, rolling his back along the wall until he was leaning on his left shoulder and looking up at Kylo with incredulity, ‘did you just tell me that my body is a temple?’

‘Yes,’ Kylo said, feeling as though he was getting through. ‘Doing anything actively destructive to it is a sin, and at any rate you’re too young to be smoking.’ He reached for Hux’s cigarettes again; Hux almost let him take them and then jerked them away. Kylo felt himself blushing as if Hux was the school bully and Kylo his victim.

‘It’s very complicated,’ Hux said in a casual lie, as if the concepts of sin and vice were beyond mortal ken. He frowned and picked a loose flake of tobacco off his tongue.

‘It really isn’t,’ Kylo admonished. Hux shrugged and watched cigarette smoke drift away, up into the air to be taken by the wind. Kylo let his curiosity out for a moment. ‘Do you always do this at lunchtimes? Come back here to hide and smoke?’

‘Mostly,’ said Hux. ‘The food’s fucking appalling.’

‘Don’t swear,’ Kylo told him automatically.

‘You’ve got so many rules.’ Hux’s pale eyes narrowed. His glance weighed and measured Kylo, sized him up. ‘How do you follow them all?’

‘I care about them,’ said Kylo, and the resulting wash of emotion that came over him made him look down at the ground. He felt naive for saying it out loud under Hux’s viciously knowing gaze. The slight that Kylo expected never came, though. ‘And I have good mentors, that guide me.’ A little flicker of inspiration came to him, then. They were connecting, he and Hux, and so he took the initiative. ‘I’m allowed to be a mentor to you, too. Any of the class, if you think you need guidance.‘

‘D’you think that would help?’ Hux said with interest. He tilted his head like a curious bird.

‘I’d do my best,’ said Kylo earnestly, wanting to. If he was close to a failure in the classroom, he was sure that he could do better without a dozen pair of adolescent eyes on him. He didn’t trust Hux one bit: not his wide-eyed mock innocence or his sudden interest in a Godly life. Snoke had set him a task, though, and Kylo wanted desperately to do better at it. Perhaps he was misreading Hux. He might be troubled and incapable of expressing it. If Kylo turned him away when he was in need - it was the kind of thing that the Bible talked a lot about. There were whole parables about it.

‘All right,’ Hux said, as if to confirm Kylo's hypothesis. He stood up off the wall and dropped the butt of his cigarette to the asphalt. He ground it out with a quick twist of his heel. ‘Mentor me, then.’ He paused. ‘There’s no weird ceremony, right - you don’t have to feed me a communion wafer while reciting the Lord’s Prayer, or something?’

‘No!’ Kylo said, shocked. ‘God - excuse me - no, er, it’s just informal. We’ll arrange a time to meet every week.’

‘Phone number,’ Hux demanded, pulling out his cellphone and unlocking it with a swipe so that Kylo could enter his number. Kylo found himself obeying. There was about half a minute of excruciating, awkward silence. Hux hovered, as if he had somewhere else to be.

‘Right. Well. We’ll start with the smoking,’ Kylo said with badly faked confidence, and he reached for the pack of Camels. This time, Hux let him take the box. It didn’t feel like a win. Kylo thought that if he reached up and touched his own lip, he might be able to feel the fishhook.


	4. Chapter 4

> _So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh._

Galatians 5:16

Two weeks drifted by. It was a warm, humid summer and the work ethic of everyone in the seminary seemed to slip in favour of spending as much time as possible sitting out on the lawns or under the overgrown trees. Meals became less involved. The overheated kitchen staff provided light refreshments and opened up the huge windows in the dining hall. Soon enough, people just started taking their plates outside. Lunches and dinners felt rather like picnics. Discipline lapsed, and even the ringing of the bells sounded lazy.

Poe stopped shaving and started a practice of impromptu guitar concerts on the quadrangle in the evenings. He didn’t play hymns. He didn’t even play the modern devotional music that made Kylo cringe. Instead, he strummed out bluesy numbers, singing along with his eyes closed. The female kitchen staff coincidentally took to the practice of evening walks. Kylo studied with his window closed despite the heat and politely declined Poe’s request for him to sing along sometimes.

Poe’s friend Finn cajoled the seminary administration into letting him hold guided exercise sessions in the cool of the early morning. From an enthusiastic recounting by Poe, Kylo gathered that Finn had quoted Romans 12:1 in a powerful argument, delivered while Finn was still sweaty and tank-topped after a workout. Finn was an excellent cajoler. Everyone was careful not to accidentally use the word _yoga_ , but each day just after Prime half a dozen of the younger, fitter seminarians assembled on the lawn to flow through a series of gentle calisthenics. In his less charitable moments, Kylo thought that the sight of Finn’s smooth, muscular, shirtless torso might be the main draw. He silently chastised himself for the thought. It was malicious, the sort of thing that Hux would say. And it was wrong. Deeply, shamefully wrong.

The omnipresent, simmering sexual frustration engendered by Poe and Finn was almost unbearable on top of Kylo’s new acquaintance with Hux. Kylo made strenuous attempts to repress it all. He began each day with a cold shower, tried to hurriedly eat before everyone else arrived at breakfast, and sequestered himself away in his room to study for most of the day. Until now, spontaneous arousal had felt like a purely physiological response. The intense, hot rushes of attraction he had begun to feel had started with Hux and overflowed, building up and spilling over into the rest of his life. Unwanted, unchecked. Kylo was at a loss. He was warm, always too warm. He lay in bed each night sweating into the sheets in his stuffy attic room and willing the ache in his groin to go away.

The seminary was as busy as ever, but Kylo felt very alone.

Snoke was gone again. A terse email had informed all relevant students that he would be giving several talks that summer to support his recently-published theological textbook. Kylo had felt rather hurt not to have received a personal message. He felt worse that he had to wait longer between confessions. He felt the need to unburden himself and receive penance so greatly that it cost him sleep and yet - and yet, Kylo thought, he could not confess an attraction to men. Was there a penance that could repair that damage? Would the seminary continue to teach him? In the absence of answers, he tried to endure.

Twice now he had seen Hux for classes and twice for meetings. In the classroom, Hux sat at the front but made little effort to engage, tinkering with his forbidden cellphone or scribbling at the pages of his notepad. Attempting to call him to order was fruitless. Either Hux obeyed with a retort that had the class snickering, or he simply ignored Kylo. Days later, he would make doe-eyed apologies for his behaviour, which Kylo gravely accepted even knowing that they were utterly insincere.

If Hux was idly disruptive in class, his behaviour in their private meetings was even more confusing. He taunted Kylo with a melange of boyish flirtation, outright blasphemy and sedition, tempered with requests for Kylo to explain specific points of Scripture and promises to try harder or to work on his behaviour. Each time Kylo thought he was getting through to Hux, Hux would make a casually obnoxious comment. Whenever Kylo felt he should cut their meeting short and walk away, Hux would rearrange himself into a posture of contrition and listen to Kylo as if he were an altar boy receiving wisdom.

‘I think you speak in Bible verses because it’s easier than having your own opinions,’ Hux said one afternoon as they sat on a bench in the local park. Hux had been intrigued to learn that a lunchtime departure from the school grounds was allowed under Kylo’s supervision, and he took every possible advantage to coax Kylo into facilitating his escape.

‘I have opinions,’ said Kylo, opening his Bible on his lap at a random page. Having the book open made him feel like a real teacher giving instruction. His finger fell midway down the page. Isaiah 50:7.

‘But the Lord God helps me; therefore I have not been disgraced; therefore I have set my face like a flint, and I know that I shall not be put to shame.’ Hux read over his shoulder. He leaned in to do it, pressing his arm up against Kylo’s. Kylo could feel the warmth of his skin through their shirts. ‘Good luck with that.’

‘With what?’

‘Setting your face like a flint,’ Hux said, resting his chin on Kylo’s shoulder for a moment. ‘You’re transparent.’ His breath smelled like mint, but Kylo thought he could detect the barest hint of cigarette smoke.

‘And you’re shameless,’ retorted Kylo, shrugging Hux away and retreating a few inches along the bench. ‘I’m sorry. That was inappropriate.’ He paused. ‘ _Are_ you ashamed of anything, though?’

‘Surely you’re not offering me confession?’ Hux looked sly.

‘Of course not, as well you know.’ Kylo refused to rise to the bait twice in twenty seconds. ‘I’m just curious. I wonder that you’re at a Catholic school at all, especially this one.’

‘Parents,’ said Hux, which was no explanation, but also all of one.

‘Are they Catholic?’ Kylo asked, and Hux barked a nasty laugh.

‘My father’s God is Mammon and my mother’s is Valium,’ he said with sneering cynicism. ‘But pretending to be Christian is good for business, so here I am.’ Sympathy welled up in Kylo.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. Hux rolled his eyes.

‘Don’t be. Two years here is supposed to improve me.’ He cast an artful glance at Kylo. ‘I’m in great need of improvement.’

‘You did something wrong...’ prompted Kylo, trying to coax out a little more information.

'Yeah, a few somethings,' Hux said, brushing his hair out his face in a way that exposed his smooth, pale inner arm. He squinted up at the sun for a moment, considering. 'I mean, like, the insider trading was _illegal_ but I think my father had more of a moral problem with the cocksucking.'

‘That’s,’ began Kylo, reddening, but he stopped, caught by his own hypocrisy. A lecture about same-sex attraction and the wages of sin would be grossly inappropriate as Kylo sat on the same bench, snared by his own desperate lust. ‘D’you think you'd be happier at a regular school?’ Kylo asked eventually, hoping that the implication came through. Hux watched a bug crawl along the arm of the bench and shrugged.

‘At least mandatory summer school means I don't have to be at home,’ he said.

‘But would you be happier?’ Kylo pressed.

‘I'm not unhappy,’ said Hux. ‘I’m bored.’ He rolled his finger over the bug, crushing it into a long smear of yellow. He looked over at Kylo through his pale eyelashes. ‘I don’t do well when I’m bored.’ And he smiled, all neat teeth and pink tongue and green, green eyes.

* * *

‘Lunch,’ Kylo blurted out when he bumped into Rey, who was sitting on the low brick wall outside the seminary when he returned from his meeting with Hux. She was in a buttercup yellow sundress with little sleeves, drinking a bottle of orange juice. ‘Sorry, er, I mean, hello, have you had lunch? Yet?’ Rey smiled at him beatifically, bathed in sunshine. She looked - she looked like nice girls were supposed to look. Respectable.

‘No,’ she said. ‘I was thinking about it, though. I get a whole hour so sometimes I take a walk first.’

‘We could go somewhere,’ Kylo said, desperate to overwrite the experience of Hux touching him with something more permissible. Rey finished her orange juice and overhanded the bottle into a nearby trash can. She celebrated the goal with a little fist pump and Kylo watched her, a curious girl with her baffling, easy joy and her sun-browned skin. ‘Would you like to? With me?’

‘Like a date?’ Rey asked, and Kylo nodded. She paused before replying, an agony of seconds. ‘Sure!’

A few minutes’ walk down the hill was a small town with a cluster of cafes and restaurants, a rather meagre mall and some unremarkable amenities. It was hardly a buzzing metropolis, more quaint than anything else. The locals treated the adult seminarians with a sort of gently confused respect, even though it was not a religious town and barely a handful of them could have afforded to send their sons to the St. Luke’s School. Kylo rather liked it. People minded their own business, mostly. Nobody bothered him.

Rey linked her arm with his and talked away as they strolled down the hill. Weekend plans, work, the weather. Benign, pleasant chat. Kylo rarely had this sort of conversation and he found himself interjecting at the wrong times, his rhythm all wrong. In a flash of inspiration he led them down a narrow side street until they came to a tiny noodle bar. Only the little red awning outside indicated that there was anything here. It was cheap and quiet and Kylo often came here when the constant presence of other seminarians began to chafe.

‘Hey, I never knew about th-- ooh, pho!’ Rey said, letting go of Kylo’s forearm and making a beeline for the menu on the wall. Kylo chose something with prawns and they sat and waited.

‘So, er,’ began Kylo, arranging and rearranging his books in front of him. He cast a glance at the window, half-hoping that nobody would see him here and half-hoping that Poe caught a glimpse so that he could go away and gossip. _I saw Kylo Ren with a girl!_ He shuffled his feet. ‘Where do you usually go for lunch?’

‘Oh, anywhere,’ said Rey, and then she leaned forward. ‘You don’t date much, do you?’

‘No,’ Kylo said truthfully. ‘It’s not forbidden. It’s just, you know. Chastity.’

‘Ooh, wow, yikes. That must be difficult.’

‘I don’t really meet a lot of people, outside other seminarians,’ Kylo said with a shrug. ‘I study a lot.’

‘Theology? Do you know Latin and Greek and stuff?’

‘Yes.’

‘Yes to which?’

‘Latin, and Greek, and… _stuff_.’ Kylo found himself smiling, just a little bit.

‘Are you going to be a priest?’

‘I want to be. Do you always ask so many questions?’ The food arrived, and Kylo escaped from his faux pas by fumbling open his chopsticks and promptly burning his mouth on a spicy prawn.

‘It helps me get to know people,’ Rey said in between bites. ‘And I don’t really know you at all.’

‘Sorry,’ Kylo mumbled.

‘Don’t be.’ Rey licked broth from her wrist. ‘Can priests get married?’

‘Not in the Catholic church. Well, there are a few exceptions. But not usually. It’s an eschatological issue, really.’

‘And then there’s the celibacy,’ said Rey.

‘Right. And that.’

‘So if you can’t get married why are we on a date?’

‘Well, er,’ Kylo said, ‘you’re very. I mean. And I’m not a priest. So there’s that.’

‘A very theologically sound argument,’ said Rey, adopting a serious look until her grin burst out again.

‘What do you do at the school?’ Kylo asked, seizing the advantage.

‘Paperwork. So much paperwork. I file things, and I make tea or coffee, and sometimes, if I’m super lucky, I’m allowed to answer a phone.’

‘That sounds…’

‘It sounds amazingly boring, which it is, and literally any day now I’m going to quit and take a year to travel and, like, ride camels in the desert or something.’

‘I could see you riding a camel,’ Kylo said, suddenly amused. Rey laughed, and Kylo smiled, and he managed to force down his lunch while Rey told him all about the things she was absolutely, positively, definitely going to do one day soon.

This, Kylo thought, was probably what dating was supposed to be like. His nerves were probably normal. People - normal people - probably got nervous around people they liked.

‘So, this was nice,’ Rey said a little later. They stood on the sidewalk near the main road, Kylo clutching his books across his chest and Rey holding her hands loosely behind her back. She looked up at him.

‘It was nice,’ repeated Kylo, meaning it. There was something so comfortingly straightforward about Rey. Even if she did nothing but ask questions.

‘I’m going to kiss you now,’ Rey advised him, and she stretched up on her toes and pressed her soft mouth to his cheek. Then she stepped lightly away, all long legs and the swish of her yellow dress. Anyone looking at him would just see a tall, gangly boy looking at a pretty girl. She turned after a few steps and waved him a goodbye which he returned awkwardly. Kylo watched her leave, even more confused than before.


	5. Chapter 5

> _I discipline my body and make it my slave, so that, after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified._

1 Corinthians 9:27

‘Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned,’ said Kylo in a rush, crossing himself as he spoke. ‘My last confession was one week ago.’ That part was easy. He stopped abruptly. It was Sunday morning, and he had put off confession as long as possible, hoping that Snoke would be back (hoping that he wouldn’t be). Hoping that some kind of meteor would fall directly on the quad as he crossed it this morning; chastising himself for inviting disaster. Hoping for some kind of intervention even as he opened the tiny door of the confessional and eased himself inside, feeling ungainly. He took a while to arrange himself on the bench, paused, let the words fall out. They sounded dull, dying in the air. The wood polish and dust smell of the confessional, its womblike warmth and quiet, was usually comforting. Not today.

It was usually easier to confess. This was the first time in many years that he had felt honestly ashamed in the confessional. He took a deep breath.

‘Go on,’ said the voice on the other side of the screen. Father Solo, today. A grizzled, aging man with a reputation for pragmatism and the subject of some truly shocking, and possibly apocryphal, stories about a dark past. His hands and chin were scarred and his only concession to priestly garb was a clerical collar. He intimidated Kylo.

‘I have - my sins are - I have committed the sin of sloth. When I should have been working I was finding excuses to do other things. And when I was working, I didn’t apply myself to it properly. I, er, I told a few lies. Small ones.’ Kylo gulped down a hard knot in his throat. ‘And lust. I’ve thought about others in a lustful way and looked at them, even when I shouldn’t have. I’ve kept thinking about them later, even though I knew I shouldn’t.’ He broke off. It seemed like such an inadequate confession, dodging around the depth of the matter. _Forgive me, Father. I have lusted after a boy. I’ve let him touch me even though I could tell him to stop. I’ve kept meeting with him although I know I’m in near occasion of a mortal sin. And I don’t want to stop._

‘I get the idea,’ said Solo. ‘Masturbation? Sex?’

‘No,’ Kylo protested, his voice moving from a murmur to something a little louder, something that someone outside the confessional might overhear. ‘I don’t do those things.’

‘Good. Keep it that way.’ Solo shifted and Kylo waited, waited for his penance. It would be grave; a typical Sunday might see Kylo confess to sloth, and Snoke had little patience with that particular sin. He was accustomed to spending much of the next hour on his knees on the hard floor, murmuring his penance. This would surely be worse. Solo was a taciturn, grim-faced man. Solo sighed, sounding weary. ‘Look, kid, you’re what, late teens?’

‘Confession is supposed to be anonymous,’ said Kylo, trying to sound shocked rather than critical. In reality, everyone knew everyone here, and a thin wooden screen wasn’t enough to hide the voices of people you met every week. There was a polite fiction, though, and Solo casually breached the convention it as if it were nothing at all.

‘Just answer the question.’

‘I’m almost twenty-one.’

‘Right. Lust is going to be a problem for you. It’s a problem for most of us when we’re young.’

‘So what do I _do_?’ Kylo asked, anguished. His stomach, empty in anticipation of the morning’s Mass, felt uneasy and nauseous. He would never talk to Snoke like this, but Solo’s forthrightness was oddly compelling.

‘Try not to indulge it, recognise you’re human. Take up a sport, maybe.’

‘A sport,’ said Kylo, trying hard not to think of Finn’s calisthenics on the quad. ‘Wait, is that my penance? Do sports?’

‘You can go to the chapel once we're done here and say a Hail Mary. Then take the day off.’

‘You're supposed to give me a penance,’ Kylo prompted, a little confused. He waited. Behind the screen, Solo chuckled in his gravelly voice.

‘That's what I'm doing.’

‘That doesn't seem - I'm really sorry - it doesn't seem enough.’

‘Who's the priest here?’

‘You, Father, of course, but-’

‘Do you want to take the day off?’

‘No! Or, maybe, but there's so much to do and-’

‘If you don't want to do it, then that surely makes it a penance. Anyway, it’s Sunday. What were you going to do? Study?’

‘I - I don’t work, exactly, but I read-’

‘Sitting around with your nose in a theology book is work.’

‘If it’s not for a seminar or an essay, surely it’s okay?’

‘Sophistry,’ snorted Solo. ‘You’re a seminarian. Reading theology on a Sunday is work.’

Kylo thought about it for a moment. It was wretchedly logical. He couldn't think of much worse than being caught between his conscience and a priest who he was required to obey.

‘I wish there was something I could do,’ he burst out. ‘I try, and I do my penances, and I know God forgives me but it just doesn’t seem enough, somehow. It makes me want to, like-’ Kylo paused, his hands fluttering even though Father Solo couldn’t see.

‘Russian Orthodox monks used to live in underground cells as hermits,’ Solo said, his voice tinged with irony.

‘Yes, yes, like that,’ Kylo said with a shiver of urgency. He imagined an earthy, underground chamber; his flesh withering. Becoming pale and thin and reduced, his body decaying as his soul was elevated. ‘Something real.’

‘Are you arguing that the sacrament of penance and reconciliation isn’t real?’ Solo said.

‘No, I, er,’ Kylo replied, and Solo chuckled, an earthy, warm sound. It was miles away from the dusty, formulaic whisper in which Snoke conducted confessions.

‘All right, kid,’ said Solo, not unkindly. ‘Make your Act of Contrition.’ Kylo folded his hands together and murmured out the words ingrained in him, trying desperately to mean them. When Father Solo, in turn, recited his prayer of absolution, his voice softened into something approaching sonorousness; Kylo felt, rather strangely, that centuries of the faithful were observing the moment. If he opened his eyes, he wondered, would he be looking down at himself huddled in the confessional? He hung, hypnotised, until Solo finished.

‘Amen,’ Kylo whispered, with a roaring in his ears.

Someone brushed past him as he stumbled down the side of the chapel, but he didn’t stop to see who it was. He folded himself down into a pew near the door and said his Hail Mary, gripping his rosary so hard it hurt. For good measure, he ran through Psalm 50, whispering it urgently into the pew in front of him. His recitation got faster and faster, and he was breathless when he finished. Kylo stayed there, huddled down, for a little while. He was dimly aware, then, of other people coming in. The procession of the priest - not Solo today but Calrissian, the warm, handsome older man whose sermons were always laced with gentle humour.

He stood; they sang. He made the correct responses. Kneel - stand - sit - sing. Kylo didn’t need to think to follow the reassuring passage of the Mass. He did not take the Eucharist today, although he did so every Sunday. It had been his intention to confess exactly so that he could receive it. Still. His doubts assailed him and he stayed in his seat, aching for the ceremony but unable to make himself move. _Because it wasn’t a proper confession,_ said Kylo’s conscience. _And it wasn’t a real penance, and you’re going to sin again._

Kylo needed to fix it. Fix himself.

After Mass, he all but ran back to his room, taking the stairs two at a time until he was behind his locked door at the top of the house. It was lunchtime, and the seminarians would be trailing from chapel to dining hall in knots, refreshed by the solemn order of the Mass and clear of conscience. Kylo knew that feeling well. A full high Mass and Eucharist was a collectively spiritual experience. He never felt so connected to the other students as at Sunday lunch; they would sit around the tables, particularly solicitous of one another, brought together anew by the twin rituals of confession and communion.

This Sunday, Kylo felt torn apart from them. Disconnected from his fellows at the seminary and from God. Over on his desk, his cellphone chimed and he reached for it. It was a blocky old thing; it made calls and sent texts and little else. There was a very small list of people who had the number. Kylo pressed the rubber button to open the message.

_Are we meeting this week? Feeling particularly sinful. H._

That was how Hux texted - short, wry little messages that made Kylo do all the work. Laced with innuendo and never sincere. He dropped his phone as though it was red-hot and it bounced across the wooden floor and under the desk.

Kylo knelt to retrieve it, but as he folded his long legs under his body he found himself adopting an attitude of prayer. The feeling of his knees against the hard floor was reassuring. His phone was forgotten; he sighed, his hand going to his rosary as it always did when he slipped into that meditative state. It was elusive today and it chafed Kylo. When prayer failed, Kylo could usually rely on Snoke’s firm guidance in the confessional. When penance provided no relief, Kylo would fast, skipping meals until he felt light and unearthly.

He had prayed today, and confessed; he had fasted since the night before and yet. And yet. Kylo shivered, recalling the way that Father Solo had told him about Orthodox priests. On his desk was a weighty volume on mortification of the flesh. Kylo’s hands went to his shirt buttons. Slowly, slowly he opened them, and slid his shirt off his shoulders. He tugged his undershirt off, too, and unbuckled his belt. It was an old belt but the leather was good. Over the years it had softened with wear, and it was easy to double it over in his fist.

If St. Thérèse of Lisieux could bear mortification, then so could Kylo. If the Opus Dei could wear their cilices and suffer, so could Kylo. Christians had been torn apart by lions. Wasn’t it a long and honourable tradition to endure physical suffering for the benefit of one’s soul? Father Solo hadn’t forbidden it - not exactly.

‘I am not afraid to suffer,’ mumbled Kylo, quoting, and he brought the belt down on his back with a slap. It wasn’t nearly as painful as he anticipated. He tried it again, harder, one stinging line from right shoulder to left ribs. He took a long breath out and held it. Hit himself again. Harder, again. His rosary was on the floor in front of him and he stared at it, counting off a bead for every strike. By the time he had delivered himself a strike for each of the fifty-nine beads, he was shaking. His hand was sweat-slick on the belt, and he was sweating down his face, too. He hurt, burned. His right shoulder was fatigued and sore, and he let the belt fall to the floor.

Kylo folded himself down over his knees with a shuddering breath. The wooden floor was surprisingly cool on his forehead. He repeated Psalm 50 again and he felt as though the words were imbued with some kind of power.

He knelt for a long time. Lunchtime ended. He was surprised when his silence was broken by the bright sounds of seminarians walking and talking outside and he took it as his cue to stand, creaking like an old man, and make his way to the shower. The water was deliciously cold. He let it sluice over his back, leaning against the tiled wall with his forehead resting on his arms.

Leaving the house later and stepping out into the summer air felt like a rebirth. The smell of flowers was in the air; bees hummed. Kylo drifted across the quad and into the gardens, feeling like he was hovering.

‘Kylo!’ exclaimed Poe, coming across him as he made a slow and blissful progression along the gravel paths. He clapped Kylo on the back as he often did. Pain flared hot and Kylo suppressed a flinch. ‘How’re you doing, buddy?’

‘I’m good,’ Kylo said, meaning it, and he smiled and turned his face up towards the sun.


	6. Chapter 6

> _We glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope._

5 Romans 3-5

It was early evening when Kylo walked across the quiet seminary grounds, the bell for Vespers chiming out in the warm air. In a concession to the weather he had rolled up his sleeves. He carried no phone, no Bible, no notebook; nothing but the keys in his back pocket. He was unencumbered, body and soul. He had spent Monday drifting around in a heightened state of calm, eating sparingly and talking little. Now, two days after his personal ritual of penance, he was beginning to come back down to Earth.

Kylo took the long way to St. Luke’s School tonight, enjoying the weather. He brushed his hands through the lavender bushes along the path outside the chapel. Circumnavigating the seminary gardens, he headed down the hill half a mile and entered the school grounds through the back gate. It was quieter there, and the buildings were less imposing. Coming up the front drive always gave Kylo the sensation of eyes on him. Instead, he walked across the playing fields, past a cluster of boys idly playing soccer, and up to the boarding house door.

Hux was waiting for him, leaning against the wall in his usual slouch. His hands were in his pockets. He had removed his tie and blazer and put on a pair of sneakers, which gave him the effect of a menswear model for some achingly trendy brand - or at least, that was the association Kylo made. Not that he knew a lot about style. Hux’s pants were charcoal grey, his shirt a crisp white and open at the neck. It served to make his hair look brighter, redder in the evening sun. Kylo’s shoes crunched across the asphalt and Hux looked up through his eyelashes. Kylo, still awash with beatitude, chose to ignore his posturing.

‘Good evening, Hux,’ he said, calmly, a little distant. ‘Shall we walk?’

‘Fine,’ Hux said non-committally, and fell into step beside Kylo. He was still a few inches shy of Kylo’s height but he had long legs. They could walk almost in perfect unison without Kylo changing his strides. Hux stuck his hands back in his pockets, schoolboy-casual.

‘What do you want to talk about today?’ Kylo asked, mentally preparing some topics of his own. Sometimes Hux would come at him out the gate with an opinion, other times he’d shadow Kylo in a silence that managed somehow to be sarcastic, interjecting whenever it amused him to do so.

‘Whatever,’ said Hux with a shrug, a response that Kylo had chastised him for before. _That kind of attitude isn’t useful for either of us._ Today, Kylo let it pass. Patience. Grace. Fine, he’d do the work. That was part of his job here, to guide.

‘What do you do in the evenings?’ Kylo asked - an easy question, innocuous. Hux shrugged again, drifting close enough that his shirt brushed Kylo’s bare forearm.

‘I study,’ Hux said, sounding serious. ‘I walk into town, get a coffee. Sneak out for a smoke. You know. The normal stuff.’

‘We talked about the smoking,’ Kylo said. He could feel Hux rolling his eyes next to him, didn’t need to look across to see it, too. ‘Where do you go to not get caught, anyway?’ The school was much bigger than the seminary, and the students under scrutiny in a way that Kylo and his colleagues were not. Kylo tried to think of a hidden place at the seminary where one might indulge a smoking habit, and he fell short. Hux managed to regularly sneak a cigarette, and to Kylo’s knowledge, he was the only person who’d caught the boy in the act.

Hux slowed down and Kylo followed suit. With the slightest tilt of his head, Hux gave Kylo a considering stare.

‘You’re okay, Kylo,’ he said. ‘You’re totally intense and definitely should not be allowed out into the world on your own. You’re okay, though.’ Kylo stared; they had stopped in the middle of the car park.

‘Thank you,’ said Kylo hesitantly, for want of a better response. It was perhaps the first sincerely pleasant thing Hux had said to him. Kylo braced himself, waiting for the inevitable sarcastic follow-up or uncomfortable come-on. Instead, Hux just sized him up, and then he turned and started walking down behind the science building and towards the maintenance sheds.

‘Come on,’ he called back over his shoulder, startling Kylo into following him. ‘I’ll show you.’

Kylo followed Hux along the narrow paths, flagstones cracked with wear. Away from the front of the school and the critical eyes of visitors, the grounds were in need of attention. The maintenance sheds were hidden from view. Three corrugated iron buildings stood in a horseshoe shape around a wide empty space. There was a little utility vehicle and a truck parked under one of the sheds. The front was open to the elements. The other two were shut and locked up. Hux slipped between two buildings and Kylo followed, shoulders brushing against the walls. A cobweb tickled his face and he wiped it away.

‘Here,’ Hux said. At the very back of the shed was a wooden lean-to, tilted with age and built up against the side of the maintenance garage. Hux lifted the latch and the door creaked open. It was small. A selection of gardening tools were leaned against the wall, simple things, things that were used every day. A plastic window on one side let the evening light in.

Hux grinned, as if he’d done something enormously clever.

‘You sneak off here?’

‘No security cameras, no teachers, no prying eyes,’ Hux said. He leaned against the metal wall of the shed, careless of the dust and dirt. ‘You don’t know what it’s like. They watch us all the time. There’s about a thousand dumbass rules.’ Hux paused. ‘Wait, you love rules.’

‘I accept that they’re necessary for order,’ Kylo said. ‘A certain amount of structure helps us behave correctly. You’re all young and learning, so your school is looking out for you.’

‘My school is looking for money,’ said Hux. He arched his back and pulled a flattened pack of cigarettes from his pocket. Kylo sighed.

‘You told me you were going to stop that.’

‘I lied,’ said Hux calmly, pulling out a cigarette with tongue and teeth. He watched Kylo while he did it; watched him as he took out a lighter and lit the cigarette. Hux’s head fell back against the wall and his shoulders relaxed out of their usual hunch as he took the first drag. For the first time in two days, Kylo felt a stab of irritation. He was trying. He was trying as hard as he could to help Hux. And here was the boy, throwing it back in his face.

‘Knock it off,’ Kylo told him, and he snatched the cigarette from Hux’s lips and dropped it on the floor, grinding it out with the heel of his shoe. Hux looked up at him, poorly-concealed surprise flickering across his angular face, and then he rearranged his features into a sneer.

‘How’s that Catholic self-control working for you right now?’ he said, and Kylo’s jaw clenched.

‘Did you bring me here to show off your vices?’ Kylo said. ‘Is - is this all you want from me, someone to watch you misbehave? If you’re waiting for me to be impressed, it isn’t going to happen. You’re not sincerely interested in anything I have to offer you.’ He paused, the slow, boiling anger that he had worked so hard to control welling up in his chest. He realised his fists were clenched at his sides and forced himself to relax them. Hux had to look up at him; he was looming over the boy.

‘Maybe I am,’ Hux said, his voice dropping to the bottom of his boyish register. His eyes, Kylo noticed now, were a very pale green, luminous in the half-light. A burning, intense feeling began to roll through Kylo. He felt not quite in control of himself as he took a step forward and placed a hand on the wall near Hux’s head, elbow locked straight. Hux had made one of his impossible transitions from mood to mood. He looked loose and languid, his eyes hooded like Sandys’ _Magdelene_ , his lips parted.

It was an obvious invitation. Faced with Hux’s precocious, calculated sensuality, Kylo crumbled. He leaned in, right hand on the wall and left hanging by his side, and kissed Hux.

‘Yeah,’ Hux breathed, drawing it out against Kylo’s lips. He was soft and warm and tasted like sweet tobacco. It was just a brush of lips against lips, first, Kylo trying desperately to pretend that he could stop. Then Hux pressed him, opening his mouth all wet and inviting. His breath feathered across Kylo’s face. Kylo’s breath caught with the shocking intimacy of it. The touch of Hux’s tongue on his own wracked him with a shudder; his shoulders sagged and it took an effort of will not to step forward and press Hux against the wall with all of his weight advantage.

The birds outside were singing, but otherwise it was very quiet. The only sounds inside the tiny shed were their own breathing, and the slick noise of their mouths together. It seemed to Kylo an unspeakably filthy noise. It was making him hard, shamefully and against his will. Hux was a boy, and in Kylo’s charge, and they were only touching at the lips, and it was too much; it made Kylo’s blood roar and rush through him. If he had been ordered to recite the Lord’s Prayer at this moment he could not have done it. His senses were full of Hux.

When Hux reached out with one hand and touched his hip, Kylo whined in a long exhalation of breath. He bowed forward, his right forearm coming to rest on the wall, his left hand moving of its own volition to cup Hux’s jaw. It wasn’t enough. Hux pulled him in and in, bony hands on Kylo’s waist, hooking under his belt, drawing him closer like an incubus. Hux was slight but wiry, his birdlike bones belying his strong hands. Or perhaps Kylo wasn’t trying to resist. He couldn’t be sure. He knew, hazily, that he should push Hux away, but then they were clinging to each other and all of Hux’s posturing was gone.

Kylo ached. Hux’s cock was a hard line in his pants, and he was rolling his hips in a long, slow grind again Kylo. One of his hands was fisted in Kylo’s hair, the other had untucked his shirt and rested on Kylo’s skin. They weren’t so much kissing now as panting into each other’s mouths.

It was easy to get an arm around Hux’s waist. It was so, so easy to reach down under him and lift him until Kylo was holding him up against the wall. Hux moaned and wrapped his legs around Kylo’s hips. He was slight, and the wall took plenty of his weight. Kylo pressed his mouth to the smooth, pale dip between Hux’s collarbones, smelled fading deodorant and boyish sweat and the dust and soil of the shed. Raw, animal smells.

‘You could fuck me like this,’ Hux said in a rush, his voice buzzing against Kylo’s mouth. ‘If you wanted.’

‘No,’ said Kylo, his voice hoarse, but he didn’t stop rubbing himself against Hux, didn’t stop Hux doing the same to him. He didn’t put Hux down.

‘I could make you.’

‘You couldn’t,’ said Kylo into Hux’s neck, lying.

‘Don’t pretend you’re a eunuch,’ Hux said, his voice going up into a gasp at the end and his hands twisting in Kylo’s hair.

‘It’d be wrong.’ Kylo was wet in his pants, leaking, sweat damp down his back. He could come like this. He was sure of it.

‘Give me only the necessities of life,’ quoted Hux, ‘lest perhaps being filled, I should be tempted to deny You…’ he trailed off with a short, high laugh. Kylo shuddered with something like revulsion at hearing Proverbs so abused, at the way Hux had enunciated ‘filled’ with lascivious glee. His cock jumped against Hux’s.

‘Don’t,’ Kylo forced himself to say, loosening his hands so Hux slid to the ground. Hux fisted his hands in the front of Kylo’s shirt, rumpling it beyond plausible deniability. Kylo detached him, hating himself for it. ‘This is wrong.’

Hux leaned in, getting up close to Kylo’s face. His eyes were narrowed, his face sharpening back into the derision that Kylo was so used to seeing. They were still so close that Kylo could feel Hux’s body heat, hear how his breathing was coming quick. Kylo wondered, for an awful, sick moment, if Hux had been specifically sent to tempt him. ‘You’re a coward,’ said Hux, venomous and cold.

Kylo sucked in a breath. It was almost impossible to gather himself, open his mouth and say no to Hux.

‘I know,’ he replied, closing his eyes in shame, and he turned away, pushing the door open blindly and stumbling out into the dying evening sun.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Mary Magdelene, by Frederick Sandys](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Magdalene_\(Sandys\)).


	7. Chapter 7

> You have tried my heart; You have visited me by night; You have tested me and You find nothing; I have purposed that my mouth will not transgress.

Psalm 17:3

The spectre of Hux’s blissed-out, sweat-dewed face - eyes half-closed reverently, mouth open, breath coming fast - haunted Kylo asleep and awake. He had run back to the seminary after his evening tryst, hoping desperately that nobody would see him. By the time he had reached the seminary gates and crossed the gardens at a loping jog, his eyes were blurring with tears. He wouldn’t have been able to see anyone watching him anyway. Someone had called to him as he ran up the stairs to his attic room two at a time, but he had ignored them, ploughing ahead, fumbling his key in the lock and falling inside with a sob.

‘Okay,’ he said to himself, sitting on the edge of his bed, hands pressed between his knees. His cock ached, unfulfilled. ‘Okay.’ He scrubbed his hands over his face for a moment. Time stuttered; he felt suspended, trapped, and then the minutes rushed in a wash of panic. Snoke would be back by next Sunday. A confession would have to be made. All of Snoke’s worries about Kylo as a student and a seminarian would be proven well-founded.

Pleading sickness would buy him a week. He could choose not to confess and receive Communion, and hope that his colleagues and tutors did him the courtesy of politely ignoring that fact. He could partly confess; some careful phrasing, a side-stepping of pronouns.

Kylo sank his face into his hands. None of those options were morally acceptable. As long as he had to be around Hux, he would not be able to make a true confession. And there was no way of avoiding Hux save by giving up his role as a tutor. Snoke would require an explanation, and Kylo could not offer one save by lying, which he would later, in turn, have to confess.

He imagined sitting in the tiny confessional and letting the walls shrink inward, crushing him alive. Walking out into the road with his eyes closed and letting chance decide his fate. Running away, lungs like bellows and legs pumping in the hot sun until his heart exploded. Lying on the cool wood floor of the chapel and letting himself crumble away, ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

Kylo didn’t allow himself dinner. A penance he richly deserved. Instead, he sat at his desk for hours, slowly turning the pages of his books. He would take one from the pile on his left, flip through it without really reading it, and then stack it to his right. A hiss of white noise stopped him from focusing; his brain was full of something like panic, held tenuously at bay by the rhythmic turning of pages. Under it all, he was still hazily aware of his own arousal. His skin felt a little too warm. Every tiny noise from outside or elsewhere in the house made him tense. _Fight or flight,_ he thought to himself, knowing that what he wanted was neither.

The itchy, jumpy feeling persisted through the night, denying him sleep and leaving him grainy-eyed and sullen in the morning. To his shame, he awoke to a damp streak of semen on his sheets and along one thigh, and he hurriedly made his way to the bathroom to clean himself. He ate breakfast - he had almost fallen in the shower, weak from hunger - and fretfully picked at his lesson plan. A lay sermon on avoiding temptation seemed hypocritical in the extreme, but it was too late to change it. He imagined, with horrible, sick clarity, giving the lesson with Hux in the room, watching him with his sardonic, clever face twisted into a mean smile.

And then, to his confusion and disappointment, Hux wasn’t there. It threw Kylo off; he stammered through his greeting, skipped a bullet point in his notes and conducted the subsequent discussion in a daze. The boys didn’t seem to notice. A more confident teacher might have casually asked Hux’s whereabouts at the beginning of the class - _no Hux today, I see_ \- but even the thought of speaking the boy’s name made Kylo feel guilty. Perhaps some subtlety of human speech would give him away. Or he’d summon Hux back, somehow; the definition of speaking of the Devil. He struggled his way to the end of the class and then sat for a while at the classroom desk, feeling aimless.

He could go back to his room and study, or take a walk, or find himself some lunch. He could try to hunt down Poe and see if the man’s unrelenting cheerfulness helped. He could sneak to the chapel and hope that there was a priest in attendance that he knew very little; maybe then he could confess without precipitating disaster. He was sure, quite sure, despite everything he knew about the sacramental seal, that admitting spiritual failure would be the undoing of him.

‘It doesn’t work like that,’ he mumbled to himself, yet he still couldn’t form a mental image of listing his particular and dire sins to a priest. ‘God already knows, anyway. And He still loves me.’

‘Who loves you?’ Rey said cheerfully, leaning into the room sideways, hanging off one arm on the doorframe. Her sundress was white today with lacy sleeves reminiscent of a wedding dress, and her hair was in a high bun. She was long and slender like a ballerina, and Kylo was terrified of her having overheard.

‘Nobody,’ he said, standing up and almost overturning his chair. ‘No one.’

‘I’m sure someone must,’ she said, and came across the floor in a swinging step like a dance. She reached out to touch him and Kylo shrank back. She was too clean and fresh for him to touch with his grimy, sinful hands.

‘I was talking about God,’ Kylo said, scooping up his books and trying to sidle around her.

‘Oh, well, I hear He’s the caring sort,’ Rey said. Close-up, Kylo could see that her nose was a little sun-burned. She smiled up at him. ‘I can’t promise my affections will be as impressive, but did you want to come for lunch?’

‘I can’t,’ Kylo said, and he couldn’t keep the despair from his voice. He couldn’t come for lunch, he couldn’t date Rey, he couldn’t want her, although he liked her with a shy, awkward kind of attention that he hoped she recognised. He tried to say something more, but his voice failed him and he fled.

Perhaps, Kylo thought, this was to be his lot in life - careening from terrible decision to awful encounter with no control. He fretted. He brooded. Sunday drew closer. Snoke returned from his latest speaking engagement and Kylo skulked around the seminary grounds, trying to avoid anywhere his mentor might be. Poe and Finn, seeing his misery, took him out for dinner and coaxed him into eating sushi. Father Solo gave him a long, knowing look when they met in the hallway, and later, in the dining hall, handed him a volume about suffering and the saints. Kylo cradled it to his chest on the way back to his room. He read some of it. He brooded a little more. He spent long hours on his knees, saying his rosary, click-click-clicking the wooden beads as he’d done daily since a nun at the orphanage had slipped it into his hand as he cried, and taught him the first prayer he’d ever known.

On Saturday night, as Kylo lay in a troubled half-sleep, Hux crawled in through his window.

At first there was a soft scuffling noise from outside, and then the tiny, telltale squeak of the window opening a little further. A silhouetted shape blocked out some of the moonlight and for one tense moment Kylo experienced an acute sense of dark visitation. Then it passed, and Hux’s skinny figure slid in under the window and onto his desk, disturbing his papers and books with a rustle.

‘Good evening,’ he said, his voice incongruously normal. He swung his legs around and slid off the desk.

Hux’s bare feet hit the floor so softly that he could have been a cat. His shoes were tied together by their laces and strung around his neck, his socks balled up in his pocket. Even in the dim light, Kylo could see his grubby hands and feet. His exhilarated grin, his white, white teeth.

‘What the he— what are you doing?’ Kylo said in a loud whisper. He sat up and turned, pushing his pillow aside and hanging his legs over the top of the bed. It exposed him more than he liked, so he pulled the bedclothes around him to hide his bare chest. ‘Did you just climb up the outside of the building?’

‘It was only three floors,’ said Hux, dropping his shoes on the floor with a sound that made Kylo flinch and look guiltily towards the door.

‘You shouldn’t be here.’

‘But I am.’ Hux padded across the floor to the bed. Behind him, one of Kylo’s notebooks slid to the floor, disturbed by Hux’s entrance. ‘Do you always sleep naked?’

‘I’m not naked,’ Kylo said stiffly, tightening the bedclothes around himself. Hux was wearing a blue-grey henley, buttons undone, and dark pants that Kylo couldn’t identify. His hair was rumpled and unstyled. He looked terribly young and terribly soft, shucked from his severe suits and shirts and all ready for bed. Kylo shut his eyes for a moment, hoping that when he opened them he would be awake, and find that Hux was an insidious nightmare.

Instead, Hux took advantage of his blindness, swinging a leg over Kylo’s lap and kneeling astride his thighs.

‘You ran away from me,’ said Hux. He was whispering - he would no more want to get caught than Kylo - but it managed to make him sound more insinuating.

‘This is inappropriate,’ Kylo said, hands still balled in the bedsheets. It made very poor armour. He could feel Hux’s body heat.

‘You stare at me, kiss me, pick me up. Rub off against a wall. And now _I’m_ being inappropriate.’

‘You know you are.’

‘I’m too young to know better,’ said Hux, smug with victory. With cruel deliberateness, he placed his hands on Kylo’s chest, one-two, one on each of Kylo’s pectorals. Then he leaned in. If Kylo did nothing, Hux would kiss him. If he moved his hands to escape, he would be half-naked to Hux’s knowing green gaze. Kylo waited as Hux leaned slowly forward, and then he fought his hands out of the sheets and braced them on the mattress behind him. He leaned back. Only then did he realise the trap; before he could move, he found himself lying on his back with Hux above him.

‘Hux.’ Kylo couldn’t make himself say more. Looking feral with want, Hux slid up until he was sitting over Kylo’s chest.

‘Do you like guessing games?’ Hux asked randomly. Kylo’s brow furrowed.

‘Not… not the kind _you_ play,’ he said.

‘Guess what I want,’ said Hux, ignoring Kylo’s response. He was staring intently into Kylo’s face, willing him, daring him to answer. By now Kylo felt he knew Hux well enough to know that Hux would insist on him guessing.

‘You want— what you want isn’t on offer.’ A tight, choking feeling assailed Kylo. The room, already warm and stuffy even with the window open, was stifling.

‘And what is that?’

‘You’re suggesting intercourse.’ At the last second Kylo managed to stop himself saying ‘fornication,’ suddenly hating its old-fashioned, sermonising tone.

‘Intercourse,’ Hux said, mocking him anyway. ‘You’re thinking about fucking a seventeen year old. What a pervert you are, Father Kylo.’

‘Please don’t call me that.’

‘Oh, beg me again.’ Hux grinned. Kylo swallowed hard.

‘Please,’ he said, mouth burning with shame. ‘This is wrong.’

‘I won’t make you do anything you don’t want to do,’ Hux said, ‘but I want to hear you say no.’ He leaned in, so that Kylo could feel his breath, smell his toothpaste and soap. Hux had prepared for this, Kylo realised, washed and cleaned himself specially. ‘I don’t want to hear Bible quotes from you. I don’t want you to tell me you’ll get into trouble, or God will strike us down. Tell me you want me to go away.’

‘Hux,’ said Kylo. It came out half a moan.

‘Oh right, you can’t say you don’t want to fuck me, because that would be a lie, and lying is _bad_.’ Hux enunciated every word with vicious precision.

‘You’re evil,’ Kylo said seriously, breathlessly, and Hux laughed, reached up, and pulled his henley over his head.

He was pale and smooth in the moonlight and Kylo had to touch him. He put one hand on either side of Hux’s slender waist and moved them up over his ribs. The savagery leeched out of Hux’s face and he shivered as Kylo let his palms brush over Hux’s nipples. The hammering of Hux’s heart in his birdlike ribcage was the only sign that he was excited. Kylo made slow exploration of his skin, up his neck to his jaw, down his thin arms.

Slow minutes passed. Kylo became aware that he was hard, and Hux’s excitement was clearly visible through his thin sweatpants. With a hovering awkwardness, Kylo tried to make himself touch Hux’s erection. Hux saw his hesitation and shifted to fight his way out of his pants and underwear. He caught Kylo’s hand, snatching it away, teasing him.

‘Work for it,’ he said, afire with lust and power. Frustrated by Hux’s taunting, and already in too deep to stop, Kylo grabbed Hux around the waist and rolled him down onto the bed. The springs squeaked and Hux snorted out a gleeful laugh. He arched against Kylo and Kylo gasped out a shameful, high sound. Kylo’s boxers had twisted around and they were all but skin on skin. Kylo kicked them off and away.

Now that Kylo had Hux pinned under him, a dreadful feeling came upon him. He had never before wanted to use his size as a weapon, but he wanted to press Hux down into the mattress, bite at him, make him lose control. Hux seemed to feel that; he hooked a leg up over Kylo’s hip and reeled him in. Their cocks pressed together, Hux’s velvety-slick warmth rubbing on Kylo in a way that their meeting in the shed had only hinted at. Kylo pushed his face into Hux’s neck and breathed him in. It was so warm. Sweat rolled down Kylo’s back. He was so warm. Hux was under him and his skin, his skin was hot and soft, and his cock was hard, and Kylo had never wanted like this. He’d never had someone want him like this.

‘Come back,’ Hux ordered, biting at Kylo’s bicep. ‘Look at me.’ Kylo looked. Hux was wild and flushed.

‘What,’ breathed Kylo, his hips still moving.

‘Use your mouth.’

Kylo opened his mouth to speak and then realised and blushed. He slid down, past the soft expanse of Hux’s belly, down to his thighs. He was dusted with fair hair on his legs, and red a little higher up. Now Kylo could smell him, musky and aroused. His cock was slender like the rest of him, and fit into Kylo’s hand as if God had shaped it for the purpose. Kylo wasn’t ready. He pressed his mouth to Hux’s thigh. Again, a little higher. Hux’s hands wound into Kylo’s hair and he made a high, excited noise. The sound made Kylo’s cock jump against the mattress. Kylo licked his top lip and hesitantly, experimentally, tried to elicit the same reaction.

What was the most sensual thing he knew? Kylo breathed in Hux’s scent and spoke to him, very softly, dropping his voice as low as he could.

‘Listen,’ he said, ‘adoro te devote, tibi se cor meum totum subjicit.’ He ran his lips up Hux’s cock. ‘Quia te contemplans totum deficit.’

‘Jesus Christ,’ cursed Hux, his hips twitching up a little. ‘What does that even mean?’

Eyes closed, Kylo smiled. He licked at Hux, tasting salt and sweat on the tip of his cock. ‘It’s Aquinas. _Devoutly do I adore thee. My whole heart submits to thee, and in contemplating thee does surrender itself wholly_.’ He paused. ‘Loose translation.’

Hux propped himself up on his elbow. ‘Are you such a fucking virgin that you’ve managed to fall in-- _oh_.’ Hux broke off as Kylo ran his tongue over his cock again.

‘Only for tonight,’ Kylo said giddily, feeling drunk, feeling powerful. He rested a hand on Hux’s belly, pushed him back down. Hux’s heartbeat skittered under his touch, and the boy’s cock tasted good, and pulsed on his tongue. Kylo sucked at him, lips and tongue and palate, not knowing what he was doing but feeling Hux pant and swear and chasing his love noises. Kylo’s own cock was aching for release, so tight and hard that even the brush of his sheets felt like enough.

And it was. Kylo rubbed against his bed, sucking Hux off with long, greedy laps of his tongue and then-- and then-- his orgasm rushed up on him, too-sudden, and he pulled off Hux and whimpered, face in Hux’s hip.

‘Oh,’ he said weakly, spurting against the sheets and fucking his hips through it, unprepared for the way it felt. He grabbed for Hux, pawing at his thighs and belly, confused, overwhelmed. When he finally looked up, Hux was watching with a smile that hovered between disdain and delight.

‘Get off the bed,’ said Hux suddenly. Kylo complied, his body loose and warm as he slid to his knees as if in prayer. Hux swung his legs over the edge of the bed, wound a hand in Kylo’s hair and fed his cock back into Kylo’s mouth. Posed so, Hux could slide all the way down to Kylo’s throat. At first Kylo gagged on it, not understanding the appeal, but then he saw Hux’s vicious, hot joy and it thrilled him in turn. He let it happen; let Hux use him, wanting it. He wondered if he would taste it when Hux came. He wondered what it would be like.

Hux grabbed his chin, turned his face up. Opened his mouth with a thumb on his lip. Kylo obeyed. When Hux came it was sudden and bleachy and Kylo swallowed him down in confusion, his hands laced behind his back as they were when he took Eucharist. Hux moaned when he came, hand on his cock and the other fisted in the bedsheets. His hair fell in his eyes.

The small room was quiet for a few seconds, and then, in unison, Kylo and Hux both blew out a long breath. Hux reached for his pants and lit himself a cigarette. Kylo stayed on his knees; they were bruised from kneeling so much in the days before, but it was a comforting posture. He found his hand splaying out, reaching for the rosary that was currently on his desk.

‘Hux--’ Kylo began, not sure what he was going to say, but he was interrupted by Hux leaning forward and licking a quick, messy kiss into his mouth.

‘Remember me when you’re confessing tomorrow,’ Hux said, passionate like a real lover might be. He put a hand tightly over Kylo’s mouth and then brought the end of his cigarette down into the tender skin at the hollow of Kylo’s neck. Kylo did a poor job of stifling his yell.

Hux smiled down at him, his canine teeth sharp and white in the dark.


	8. Chapter 8

 

> _The one who guards his mouth preserves his life; The one who opens wide his lips comes to ruin._

Proverbs 13:3

‘Hey, buddy,’ Poe called gently through Kylo’s door. Kylo groaned and rolled over to check the time. It was almost eight in the morning; he had slept through Prime and would soon be in danger of missing breakfast. The was a pause and then another soft knock. Kylo peeled his eyes fully open and sat up in bed. The covers were rumpled and he felt sticky from Hux’s visit.

‘Yeah,’ said Kylo, and was surprised to find that his throat hurt and his voice sounded ragged. His head pounded; this, he thought blearily, must be what a hangover felt like.

‘Are you okay?’ Kylo pulled himself to his feet and shuffled towards the door, pausing to pick up yesterday’s shirt from his desk chair and pull it on. He cracked open the door enough to speak to Poe, hoping that nothing in his appearance would give away Hux’s illicit appearance in his rooms. Hux was long gone - he’d slipped back out the window leaving Kylo gasping and touching the burn on his neck with careful fingertips. But Poe, Poe had had a history before making his way back to the Church. Kylo felt very exposed.

‘I, er, I don’t feel great,’ Kylo said truthfully.

‘Ooh, yeah, you’re kinda pale. Maybe you should go back to bed.’

‘I think I will,’ said Kylo, and Poe reached an arm through the door and nudged him on the shoulder with a fist.

‘If anyone asks, I’ll tell them you’re sleeping. You want me to bring you lunch?’ Kylo wanted to say no, but Poe was smiling his easy, cheerful smile, being kind because that was the person he was.

‘Yes, please,’ Kylo said. He disliked extremely the prospect of someone else selecting and handling his food, but he didn’t have to actually eat it.

‘See you later,’ Poe whispered, as if Kylo were already asleep, as he closed the door. Kylo waited until his footsteps had faded away downstairs, and then slipped to the bathroom, using the toilet and washing his body and face over the sink. Back in his room, he stripped off the bed linen and shoved it under the bed in a ball, to be dealt with later. A single fresh sheet laid over his mattress sufficed; it was too warm for anything else. He lay down, too-warm and aching, and tried to sleep the day away.

Monday morning dawned grey and heavy, the air thick with humidity and the sky dark with the threat of a storm. Kylo’s malaise of the previous day had dissipated, dispelled in part by the knowledge that he could put off deciding his spiritual fate for another week. He breakfasted and set his bed linen to clean in the tiny laundry room. Then he gathered his books for a private tutorial on counselling the bereaved with Ms. Kanata, a petite and softly-spoken psychologist. With her enormous spectacles and hand-knit sweaters, she reminded Kylo of a drab but wise little owl. Her presence was always comforting, and he walked across the grounds with some pleasure.

When Kylo tapped gently on her office door and pushed it open, he was surprised to see Father Calrissian already there, deep in quiet conversation with Ms. Kanata.

‘Oh, I, er,’ Kylo said, backing out of the room, but Calrissian beckoned him in.

‘No, Kylo, come here. I’m here to fetch you for a meeting.’

‘A meeting?’ Kylo said, a sickly, slow dread starting to seep through him. They knew. This could only meant that they knew about him, about Hux.

‘Yes, I’m afraid I have to take you away from Sister Mary today. You can reschedule. Excuse us, Mary.’

Calrissian took Kylo by the elbow and guided him to the top of the old building.

‘I thought Ms. Kanata was a psychologist,’ said Kylo, desperate to break the silence.

‘She is, and a good one.’ Calrissian smiled. ‘But back when she and I were youngsters, she was a nun. Sister Mary Mercy. But for her I’d never have found my own calling. She’s got a gift for pointing people towards where they need to be. That looks painful, by the way - you should go to the infirmary.’ He touched his hand to the hollow of his throat, right where Hux's cigarette burn stood out livid on Kylo's skin.

'Just a bee sting,' lied Kylo awkwardly, and Calrissian nodded and dropped the issue.

They paused in a corridor Kylo had never been in, outside a door he did not recognise. Calrissian opened the door.

Snoke was there, to Kylo’s dismay, as well as an enormously tall, heavy-set man with a voluminous beard, who Kylo vaguely recognised as the headmaster of St. Luke’s.

‘Chewie,’ said Calrissian, ‘this is the young tutor, Kylo Ren. Kylo, this is Ilya Chuchumashev, from St. Luke’s.’

‘Call me Chewie,’ said the big man, engulfing Kylo’s hand in his own. ‘Everybody in this country has trouble with my name.’ His accent was thick and his voice warm.

‘Let’s dispense with the small talk,’ said Snoke from the desk, and they all say. ‘We’re here for a brief post-mortem on the Hux situation.’ Everyone but Kylo nodded gravely; Kylo sat rigid in his chair, gritting his teeth to avoiding blurting out a tearful apology. ‘We all agree that this behaviour cannot continue?’ There was general agreement. ‘My recommendation would be immediate termination, never mind the suspension that the boy's already been given.’ Snoke turned to Kylo. ‘Since this concerns you, my boy, would you like to add anything to the conversation?’

Kylo paused, the three men looking at him expectantly. He was clearly expected to have an opinion on his own dismissal, which seemed strange.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said finally, in a rush. ‘I’m so sorry. I never meant for any of it to happen. I was a bad tutor and a bad mentor and I should have asked for help when things started getting out of hand.’

There was a brief and deeply uncomfortable silence. Then Calrissian leaned over and put a consoling hand on Kylo’s shoulder.

‘Kylo, nobody expected you to predict how badly Hux was going to behave. We absolutely don’t blame you under the circumstances.’

‘You… don’t?’ Kylo was struggling with the notion that two secret, forbidden sexual encounters could be viewed under Catholic doctrine as nothing to worry about.

‘Not at all,’ chimed in Chewie, the bass in his voice making him sound rather like an Orthodox priest in full song. ‘Hux is a troubled young man. The cigarettes. The drinking. The selling his body. None of these things I could predict. We cannot expect you to see what we three grown men could not.’

‘He did what?’ Kylo said, aghast. ‘I knew he was smoking - I was trying to get him to stop.’ The three elders looked at each other for a moment, and in the end it was Calrissian who spoke.

‘Hux had been sneaking off the campus and spending time in the local bars,’ he said. ‘He was eventually spotted by a staff member last week, in the alley behind an Irish pub. Money was changing hands.’ He coughed delicately. ‘For services that Hux was providing.’ Kylo remembered the easy way Hux had shed his clothes; the way he’d fucked Kylo’s mouth with an air of experience.

‘I can’t…’ began Kylo, his voice giving out on him.

‘Anyway,’ Snoke continued, his old face pursed with distaste, ‘the specifics are unnecessary. The young man will be expelled, of course. None of this will reflect on you, Kylo, and Mr Chuchumashev is happy for you to continue tutoring at the school.’

If Kylo had had any sort of decency, any moral compass whatsoever, now would be the time to confess all, he thought. A heartful, contrite admission that he had been as flawed as Hux - worse, in fact - would be the correct course of action. Instead, Kylo stared down at his shoes and nodded his assent at the room in general.

‘Can I see Hux, before he leaves?’ he asked in a fit of cowardice. He thought fast. ‘He’s lonely, I think. His parents are distant. I don’t want to disappear on him.’

‘That’s a kind thought,’ said the enormous Chewie. ‘And you’re not wrong about his parents. I condone it.’ He looked around the room, and Snoke and Calrissian gave their assent. Then Kylo was dismissed, and he found himself standing in the middle of the corridor with the door closed firmly behind him.

* * *

‘Why?’ Kylo asked desperately, less than an hour later. Hux ignored him, folding his clothes into a suitcase with a precision that Kylo would not have expected of him.

‘Why, what?’

‘You must have known you’d get caught.’ Kylo couldn’t make himself say it.

‘Getting caught didn’t seem to both _you_.’

‘How long?’

‘Since I’ve been here, pretty much.’ Hux looked up at Kylo through his eyelashes in that wicked way he had. ‘I told you that being bored is a problem for me.’

‘Couldn’t you have found some other way to entertain yourself?’ Kylo said. ‘Of all the - of all the things you could have done.’ He clamped his lips together tightly, just to shut himself up for a moment.

‘What, like extra Bible study in the evenings? Or board game nights? Or lacrosse?’ He spat the last out with a vehemence that sounded bizarrely personal.

‘I was right here,’ Kylo said beseechingly. ‘You could have talked to me.’

‘Yeah, I noticed how much you liked it when we _talked_ ,’ laughed Hux, pairing two stray socks. Kylo grabbed him by the bicep then, and pulled him away from his packing. The room was small, and they ended up almost touching.

‘Stop it. Just listen. You could have talked to me. You could have talked to someone else.’

‘About what?’ The damnable faux innocence was back in Hux’s face again.

‘If you were in trouble,’ Kylo began, and Hux cut him off with a sharp, mean, bark of laughter. He pulled his arm out of Kylo’s grip and looked at him with disdain.

‘I wasn’t in trouble,’ he enunciated slowly. ‘I knew exactly what I was doing.’

‘So now what?’

‘Now? Now they'll formally kick me out, my parents will probably find me a new school to be bored at. They’ll very carefully not shout at me, because shouting is what the _underclasses_ do. They’ll involve a shrink.’ Hux shrugged. ‘I’m eighteen at the end of the year, anyway. Only one more year of this bullshit left.’

‘Don’t swear,’ said Kylo reflexively. Hux turned back to his packing, arranging the last few things and then closing the suitcase with a sharp snap.

‘Well?’ Hux said. ‘Any last words of mentorly wisdom before they escort me off the grounds?’ Hux didn’t sound concerned, or surprised, or ashamed. Kylo didn’t really expect him to. This was how it was, then - Hux was used to leaving. Or used to being expelled.

‘When did they tell you?’ Kylo said. ‘I mean, how long did you have to pack, and to say goodbye.’ Hux snorted at the word ‘goodbye.’

‘Saturday morning,’ he said casually. ‘They didn’t want to disrupt classes.’

Kylo felt a little sick. ‘So when you came to…’ he trailed off, afraid that someone might overhear.

‘Don’t make a big deal of it,’ Hux said carelessly. He pulled his suitcase off the bed with a jerk of his thin arms, shrugged on a backpack and stuffed his smartphone in his pocket. ‘Would have been a shame to leave without seeing if you’d put out.’

‘That’s cruel,’ Kylo said. His mouth felt thick and dry.

‘That’s what they all say. See you around, Kylo Ren.’ Hux pushed past Kylo, suitcase wheels clicking over the metal carpet divider. Kylo didn’t turn to watch him go. He was scared that he might end up running after Hux.

* * *

Two days later, Kylo sat in the back seat of a jolting, ancient bus. He had dressed that morning as he always did: dark shirt, dark trousers, the same big, plain shoes. He carried nothing with him but his keys, a couple of ten dollar bills and his bus ticket. The journey was tedious - a boring, uncomfortable ride through a series of small towns until he came to Rodbrook. The town itself was unimportant; Kylo had sat at his desk with a diocese listing and a bus timetable until he had found somewhere unobtrusive in the next diocese over. There was a small church, and it would be possible to confess. With Hux gone, Kylo had found that a solution to his secret sins had swum to the top of his fevered mind. He would not have to confess to Snoke, or to Solo, or Calrissian; he would not have to share his appalling lapses in behaviour with men he saw every day. Instead, he could take himself to a different diocese entirely and make a full and frank confession to a priest who would never hear his voice again.

It was a sneaking, cowardly kind of a solution. Kylo hated himself for thinking of it, and hated himself even more for following through.

He stepped off the bus into a flurry of dust. A silver pole with a blue sign was the only bus stop. The town - the title was really charitable - was nothing but two long roads, a stoplight and a cluster of stores. Dry and quiet and falling apart. There were few people out, and despite his height and his austere dress, nobody gave Kylo a second glance. He felt as though he were in a Western as he strode down the main street to a grey-white clapboard church. When he reached it, he stopped with a strange jolt and read the sign: St. John Chrysostom Roman Catholic Church. Some aspiring artist had, years ago, set the dark blue letters over a simple outline of a bee in light grey.

Kylo walked towards the door as if compelled. The church steps bowed and creaked under his weight, shedding old paint flakes. It was as warm instead the church as outside, all stuffy and dusty and uncomfortable. Kylo made his way to the back of the single room, where a modest confessional was built into the back wall. One door was closed. Kylo hovered in front of it. He could hear the faint breathing of someone inside.

‘If you’re here for confession, come in,’ said a voice. A surprisingly young voice, but quietly confident. Kind. Kylo shuffled forward and folded himself into the space, swinging the door closed behind him. They sat in silence for a little while, Kylo reluctant to speak and the unknown priest apparently willing to be patient. The minutes stretched out, and out, and Kylo thought that he might have come all this way just to leave without making his confession. Wasting the priest’s time, an inconvenience as always.

‘I’m sorry,’ Kylo said.

‘Don’t be. God doesn’t mind if you need a while.’

Kylo took a deep, sucking breath, wet through the tears that had suddenly sprung up. Before he realised it, he was crying in big, quiet gulps, hunching over on the bench. There was no kneeler in the confessional, but Kylo slid off the bench and onto his knees with a crack.

‘Forgive me, Father,’ he began, the blood rushing in his ears until he could no longer hear his own voice.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is it, folks - the final chapter. The story ends here. I beg your indulgence for any continuity errors; if you follow [my blog](http://lingua-mortua.tumblr.com) you'll know I've been recovering from a particularly nasty oral surgery this past week. This chapter was nobly betaed by kindly literary genius [kdazrael](http://kdazrael.tumblr.com) whose advice I listened to and then was too lazy to follow.
> 
> Thanks for reading, friends. It's been great.

> _You have not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood in your striving against sin._

  
Hebrews 12:4

_A year later_

**HUX FAMILY ANNOUNCE ONLY SON TO STUDY AT YALE**

The son of Brendol Hux will follow his father and grandfather to Yale University this fall, majoring in Ethics, Politics and Economics. A press release from the oil and gas magnate stated that Hux, Jr's parents are 'pleased and proud' to see their son admitted to the prestigious college.

Earlier this year, a source close to the family caused scandal when they suggested that the scion of the noted multi-millionaire had been expelled from three schools in a row. The source, and the rumour, were hastily quashed, and this paper received no response to its enquiries to the schools in question.

Hux Jr will not be taking a gap year, and will be studying an accelerated program. Some commentators are suggesting that the young man is being groomed to succeed his father, who has long been suffering from the effects of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. It is unclear how this may affect Hux Petroleum.

* * *

The headline screamed out from the page in black and white, and Kylo hastily folded the newspaper in half and shoved it between two of his books. There were times when he could almost forget the hot, desperate summer a year ago. He went whole days without thinking about Hux, sometimes. Today was not one of those days, and Kylo had not expected it to be. Still, the coincidence of Hux’s name in the day’s papers pricked at him. Today, he was graduating. In the joyful press of family and friends mingling before the ceremony, Kylo had slipped away to the library to read, one eye on the clock awaiting eleven. _The eleventh hour_ , he thought to himself with dark amusement.

A tiny, mean part of his conscience pricked at him. It suggested that at any moment, someone might rush into the ceremony, eyes wild and finger pointing at Kylo. Telling everyone that Kylo Ren was no more fit to be a priest than a random man picked off the street. Tamping down his anxieties, Kylo tucked his book into a storage cubby, adjusted his robe and made his way to the chapel. The graduation gown was just shy of long enough, and it flapped out bizarrely from Kylo’s broad shoulders. Even slouching, he felt ungainly - taller than everyone else and horribly self-conscious. It was a relief to file into the chapel and sit, partly disguised amongst the little cloud of black-clad graduands.

‘Welcome, friends,’ said Father Calrissian in his sonorous, warm voice, and Kylo could finally relax into the calming rhythm of ceremony.

* * *

**HUX JR: I’M NOT MY FATHER**

An enterprising paparazzo got more than he bargained this week when he accosted the young son of noted oil magnate Brendol Hux at a charity ball in New York. When asked how he felt his university studies were preparing him to succeed his father at Hux Petroleum, the young heir and socialite told the reporter, ‘I’m not my father, and my personal affairs are none of your goddamn business.'

This incident comes on the heels of an awkward moment on Yale’s campus earlier this year. Witnesses state that a reporter approached Hux, Jr unexpectedly and asked him to comment on rumours regarding his father’s recent hospitalisation. Hux, then 19, reportedly made an obscene gesture towards the man and was heard to say that the reporter was a ‘weasel’ and a ‘shill’ who ‘preyed on people.’

While none of the Hux family were available for comment, a representative of Hux Petroleum stated that Hux Sr is in good health, and that his family understands that Hux Jr is keen to make the most of his university experience before making any decisions about his future.'

* * *

The town Kylo was heading for was small - so small that it didn’t appear in any guidebooks and had no internet presence. Kylo was not without trepidation as he received an envelope from the tired-looking pastor.

‘Is this everything?’ Kylo asked dubiously, sorting through the slender packet of information. A single sheet of paper with an address and a contact, a flimsy bus ticket and a letter of introduction.

‘That’s all I’ve got,’ said the pastor, shrugging. He waved a hand around the tiny office with an air of exasperation. ‘We come for a year or so, we do what we can, we move on. It’s not like this all comes with a handbook.’ Right in front of him on the rickety desk was a nondescript Bible bound in red. Kylo and the pastor rested their eyes on it at the same time, and the pastor cleared his throat awkwardly. ‘Anyway, if you run into real trouble you can call me. There’s no cell service out there, but I’m sure you can find a landline.’

‘Right,’ Kylo agreed, because there was nothing else to do. To turn back now would be the most shameful kind of failure.

‘You said your Spanish was good?’

‘Conversational,’ hedged Kylo. ‘And I’ve got a Spanish copy of the Bible.’

‘Hallelujah,’ said the pastor with a very unbecoming kind of sarcasm. Then his face relaxed a little. ‘You’re better prepared than ninety percent of the guys we get.’

‘Thank you,’ Kylo said. He ran a finger around the inside of his plastic clerical collar. It was still stiff with newness, and terribly sweaty against his skin. He felt similarly stiff and untested, agonisingly aware of his inexperience in almost every area of life.

‘Ready, then?’ The pastor looked as though all he wanted was to see the back of Kylo and his inconvenient requests.

Kylo imagined working with some aging priest in a small, midwestern town. Getting older. Hearing confessions and delivering the Eucharist on quiet days. The pedestrian sins of small-town folk. The chattering of the lonely elderly. He imagined how much time that would give him to think.

‘I’m ready,’ he said. They shook hands and Kylo left, turning out the front yard and down the road towards the bus station. Everything he needed was in his backpack: clothes, toiletries, money, his Bible, and an envelope of press clippings carefully tucked into an inner pocket.

* * *

_Three years later_

**BRENDOL HUX DIES AGED 61**

Brendol Hux, the visionary CEO who turned Hux Petroleum into one of the oil and gas industries most influential players, died on Sunday at the age of 61. Mr Hux had been struggling with the effects of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and had been scaling back his participation in public events.

Originally from Boston, Hux relocated his family to Houston after inheriting Hux Petroleum from his father in the late 1990s. Under his able guidance, the company grew from a regional household fuel supplier to a multi-national, multi-billion dollar petroleum shipping business.

Luke S. Walker, CEO of ForceX Drilling, said this morning, 'Brendol's death is a real blow to us all. Hux Petroleum have been our primary shipping contractor for more years than I care to count. Brendol was a friend and a peer mentor to me and to so many others in the business.'

Well-respected and well-liked, Hux was known for inspiring loyalty.

'He was a real visionary,' said Patty Lowes, manager of the Houston flagship office and Hux Petroleum employee since 1999. 'He honored his father's legacy, but he wasn't afraid to take the company in a new direction. I've been with the company for twenty years, and I can't imagine it without him.'

Brendol Hux is survived by his wife, Annabelle, and his son, Hux, Jr., who is already being tapped to take over the business. The younger Hux formally graduates from Yale later this month.

* * *

The newspaper was days old and had been read and crumpled by dozens of hands, but Kylo held it as though it were precious. He was sitting in a cheap cafe in Caracas, his battered old rucksack between his feet, taking a breakfast of coffee and _perico_. The arrival of the news felt oddly prophetic. Another coincidence. Kylo had been in Venezuela for three years to the month, and was finally on his way home.

The first year was by now a blur in his memory; working absurdly long days in a tiny, provincial hospital, more an orderly than a priest. He had heeded the tired, middle-aged administrator when she looked him up and down (Kylo all travel-stained and rumpled) and shrugged, ‘they always send us American kids with Bibles. Tell them to send us doctors next time.’ He had picked up a mop or a saw or a wad of gauze as required. He became more familiar with Last Rites than the Eucharist or Confession.

During the second year, the locals became sufficiently tolerant of his quiet attempts at usefulness that he had stayed on. Missionaries had come and gone. Some higher-up in the diocese had sent a priest - a real one - who viewed Kylo as a strange appendage and could find no use for him.

‘Just continue with your work in the hospital,’ Father Gilberto told him, before absently waving him away.

‘I don’t think he likes me,’ Kylo said broodingly to the hospital administrator, returning to her office with the news.

‘Why should he?’ she responded, and that was that. Kylo carried on, the soles of his shoes wearing down and his Bible starting to smell musty with damp. Tucked inside the front cover, his small collection of newspaper clippings suffered the same fate. The older ones were starting to fall apart down the creases, now, but Kylo couldn’t bring himself to throw them away. He reread them on Sundays, in tiny fits of rebellious blasphemy, and resigned himself to the mortal sins that he couldn’t confess to. His Spanish was serviceable, within his tiny sphere of hospital duties, but it could not describe the complexities of explaining the seminary, Hux, the newspaper stories. He had never asked Father Gilberto for confession, although he knew he should.

At the beginning of Kylo’s third year, a heavy, early rainfall washed away the only road leading to the little town. The subsidence covered the fields and farmland in polluted water, and the Venezuelan government sent helicopters to evacuate the hospital. Kylo walked through the empty corridors, under lights flickering and dying from intermittent emergency generator power. His feet scuffed on the battered linoleum. It was uncannily quiet, and Kylo found himself clicking his rosary beads in his hand just for some noise.

‘It wasn’t me, right?’ he whispered into the dead air. ‘I mean, You’re not trying to making a point here, or something?’

‘I suppose you’ll go home,’ said Father Gilberto later, as they sat crammed into the last two seats of the last helicopter to leave.

‘I suppose,’ Kylo agreed, feeling bizarrely and pleasantly adrift as the helicopter rose above the ravaged landscape.

‘I read terrible things about America,’ mused Gilberto. He patted Kylo’s knee in a rare expression of sympathy.

In the nondescript Caracas cafe, Kylo waited until nobody in the cafe was looking. Then he swiftly removed the newspaper page with a jerk and folded it into the front of his Bible with the others. _One for the road,_ he thought, with a bubble of amusement that felt unsteady, hysterical.

* * *

**WEDDING BELLS FOR HUX JUNIOR**

Flame-haired hottie Brendol Hux, Jr. is getting hitched! That's right, ladies - the dashing young CEO and multimillionaire is planning nuptials with his girlfriend Bebe Bianchini. We have it on good authority that a proposal took place in one of New York’s most exclusive hotspots. The eligible bachelor might be cutting his playboy career very short indeed. Hux is only 21, and our sources say that his mother's furious about his choice of wife. We don't blame her! Bebe’s been in the pages of CELEB many a time. She may be a model, but it seems to us that she gets photographed OUT of her clothes more often than IN them. We have this to say to young Mr. Hux: Brendol, this Italian babe is wily enough for any high-powered boardroom. Beware!

* * *

Kylo snapped the magazine closed and shoved it back into the rack. He didn’t need to calculate the distance to New York City. He knew it exactly; seven hundred and seventy eight miles. A mile too far, if one wanted to be symbolic about it. It had been a good photograph of Hux, and the first that Kylo had seen in a very long time. He put it out of his mind and gathered a few things from the sparse shelves of the gas station, Bible tucked awkwardly under one arm. A gallon of milk, some tired, bruised apples and a box of mac and cheese. Hux had filled out a little, his face refining into maturity. Bacon, cheap and fatty but passable for sandwiches. Eggs. He’d been wearing a suit cut with deceptive simplicity, and a plain white shirt, just as Kylo remembered him. A new toothbrush - Kylo kept forgetting. He chose a green one.

The bored girl at the counter snapped her gum and rang Kylo up. She must have known him by sight; Kylo had been living nearby for three months, coming in a couple of times a week with his clerical collar and Bible surely marking him out. She offered no courtesies, though. Kylo handed over the right bills and grimaced at how little change she returned to him.

‘Thank you, good night,’ he said, as he said every time.

‘Uh huh,’ said the girl, and picked up her phone. Kylo stepped out into the darkening evening, cradling his paper bag of groceries. It was a short walk home.

Around the corner, he pulled up as a stocky man of indeterminate age stepped into his path.

‘Sorry, excuse me,’ Kylo said, trying to move around him.

‘Stop right there,’ the man said, squaring off. He was not tall but there was a bullish quality to him that suggested violence. Kylo eyed him, not recognising his face. ‘You’re gonna, you’re gonna go over there, to the ATM, and you’re going to take out your money.’ He gestured, as if the green glow from the ATM wasn’t obvious. It lit the side of his face, sickly and unnatural. Kylo hesitated. The man took a step forward. ‘Do it. Move it!’

‘I really don’t have any money,’ Kylo said, truthfully. And then, ‘I’m a priest.’ Now that the man was within arm’s reach, Kylo saw that he was agitated, his pupils dilated and his teeth grinding away.

‘Get out your fucking card,’ the man spat. Kylo crouched down very slowly and placed his precious groceries on the floor, by the wall. He rescued his Douay-Rheims from where it was slipping down his elbow towards his hip.

‘I really am a priest,’ Kylo said, holding up the Bible. ‘If you need money - if you need food, or supplies, we can help you at the church. The Redeemer, on fifth street.’

The man reached backwards and pulled a gun from his waistband. Kylo had to stifle the urge to break into laughter - it was too ridiculous, he thought, to try to hold up a priest outside a fading gas station in the deep South. Tom Waits had probably written a song about it. Hux would have found it hilarious. He wondered how hard it would be to phone Hux Petroleum and get through to their CEO. The man’s finger was on the trigger. Kylo bit back his smile.

‘Last chance, asshole,’ the man said. The barrel of the gun wavered back and forth. The warm wind picked up a little and a crushed plastic cup went skittering along the asphalt. Otherwise, the evening was still and quiet.

Kylo stroked his thumb over the comfortingly soft leather of his Bible. It had been old when he’d been given it, ten years ago. The cover was buttery-smooth; he knew every crease and scratch. His thumb brushed against the feathery edges of the newspaper cuttings sticking out one side.

Hux was getting married.

There were no coincidences in life, he thought. Kylo closed his eyes and imagined a different warm, summer evening, with bees buzzing in the gardens and the sonorous noise of bells ringing out the Hours. He smiled.

‘Do what you need to do,’ he said, and he finally let himself exhale.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Visu sim beátus tuæ gloriæ](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6842794) by [fraxiinus](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fraxiinus/pseuds/fraxiinus)




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